To say that Tom Cruise’s whirlwind romance with Katie Holmes was the talk of the town for quite some time would be an understatement because it was most certainly the talk of the world for way more than ‘quite some time’, considering how the pair are still popular for it despite having been divorced. Yet, as famous as it was, it was considerably infamous as well, mostly because of people calling it a ‘publicity stunt’ on Cruise’s hand.
However, the Mission: Impossible star was far from ignoring all such allegations from people skeptical about his then-six-week-old romance as he brutally confronted the rumors to clear out his and Holmes’ name from the drama.
Tom Cruise Confronted Doubts On His Romance With Katie Holmes
Among all the grounds for people to doubt his relationship with Katie Holmes, one major reason was that Tom Cruise was 42 at the time while his flame was merely 26. This brought up a lot of rumors about their relationship with some even claiming it to be a publicity stunt on the actor’s side.
However, the Top Gun star was far from brushing these rumors aside, and instead, confronted them headfirst. Talking about the same in an interview with Entertainment Weekly (via People), he said:
“It’s amusing at first,” he told EW. “It’s funny. But then you sit back and realize how sad it is that there are people who can’t even imagine feeling like this. But my friends are happy for me. The people who know me are happy. My mom is happy. My family is happy.”
To further make fans believe, Cruise even pulled some stunts to showcase his love for Holmes—like the time he went wild on Oprah and jumped on the sofa and pumped his fist while gushing on and on about his whirlwind romance with Katie Holmes in an overly excited manner.
Yet as happy as Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were about it all, that was hardly the case with some others, especially with Holmes’ friends.
Katie Holmes’ Friends Weren’t Pleased With Her Relationship With Tom Cruise
While Tom Cruise may have been enjoying every bit of his whirlwind romance with Katie Holmes, the actress’ friends, in the meanwhile, were worried about her as the more Holmes’ involvement grew with Cruise and his Scientology religion, the more they felt they were losing her.
As per a story coverage by the New York Post, one of the Batman Begins star’s friends claimed:
“This relationship is becoming as weird as Liza Minnelli’s and David Gest’s. It was exciting at first that Katie [Holmes] was dating Tom [Cruise], but then when she started drifting away and I realized it was because we weren’t into Scientology, it got a little weird.”
What was worse was this worry didn’t stop there as Holmes’ friends became victims of further anxiety about their friend as they couldn’t get her to “return any calls.” Connecting all the dots to her diving deeper into Cruise’s religion, another one of her friends said:
“Before Katie moved into Tom’s place, she gave a bunch of Scientology pamphlets to her doorman at the El Royale apartment complex with instructions for [him] to pass the pamphlets out to residents.”
Nonetheless, after filing for divorce from Tom Cruise in 2012, Katie Holmes returned to the Catholic Church to practice the religion she was baptized with at birth. Now, neither she nor her daughter with Cruise, Suri, hold any ties to Scientology. And, well, the remaining is history.
