Be the fourth Mrs Tom Cruise? Are you SURE, Emily?
At 22, she’s the same age as his daughter — and the spitting image of the last wife who fled him. So is the star’s British PA lovestruck or just plain crazy?
the fatal error of falling out with Scientology’s chief — and Cruise’s best friend — David Miscavige.
Rathbun says he personally took divorce papers to Rogers and told her that signing them was the best thing she could do for Scientology.
More startlingly, it is claimed in Going Clear that the church ‘drove a wedge’ between Cruise and Kidman, whom he married in 1990. Rathbun claims in the documentary that Miscavige ordered Kidman’s phone to be tapped and worked on turning the couple’s adopted children, Isabella and Connor, away from their mother. The church has rejected the charges, labelling Rathbun a disaffected former member.
In 2001, Cruise filed for divorce from Kidman, who had reportedly always been sceptical about Scientology. According to Going Clear, the Australian was labelled a ‘Potential Trouble Source’ by Miscavige after she persuaded her husband to distance himself from the church during their marriage.
For a period it seemed to work, says the documentary, as Cruise allegedly refused to return Miscavige’s calls while the couple were in the UK filming Eyes Wide Shut.
Next came Penelope Cruz, Cruise’s co-star in the film Vanilla Sky. Again, when the relationship ended in 2004, interference from Scientologists was blamed. Miscavige, it has been alleged, regarded the Spanish star as ‘too Catholic’.
The alleged secret Scientology plot to find Cruise a girlfriend led to the notorious ‘auditions’ — both of stars and fellow Scientologists. They appeared to have found the next Mrs Cruise in British-Iranian actress Nazanin Boniadi, a beautiful Scientologist. A brief relationship ended, it is claimed, after she offended Miscavige over dinner by not appearing to understand his southern accent.
Cruise’s six-year marriage to Katie Holmes from 2006 prompted some of his most alarming behaviour. He declared his love for the actress on the Oprah Winfrey Show, jumping up and down on her sofa. Miscavige was best man at the wedding in a 15th-century castle in Italy.
Holmes quickly understood what marriage to Cruise entailed. When she was conducting press interviews to promote her film Batman Begins, a Scientology handler would actually step in and answer questions. But, like Kidman, after initially embracing Scientology, Holmes later ran from it. The break-up was dramatic stuff, it has since emerged. In 2012, she f l ed Los Angeles to New York — where divorce laws favour women more than they do in California — and filed for a divorce.
Friends said she feared Suri, who at six could be s ent to a Scientology boarding school, might be abducted by Cruise. She even used a disposable mobile phone to keep in touch with her lawyers.
He later admitted his religion had become an issue in their marriage. Holmes kept primary custody of Suri, whom she has raised as a Catholic. Although a joint public statement claimed the couple had ‘respect for each other’s respective beliefs’, Holmes privately sought assurances nothing would happen to ‘alienate’ Suri from her when she is with her father.
Reportedly restricted legally in what they can say, Cruise’s ex-wives have not commented about the role of Scientology in their marriages to the diminutive star. Kidman still talks fondly of him as a husband, telling Vo gu e only this week her only real regret is that they didn’t have at least twice as many children before they split up.
Cruise, meanwhile, is said to be making wedding plans. He reportedly wants Suri to be a flower girl.
His adopted older children, a source told Star magazine, found it ‘strange’ that he wanted to marry someone so close in age to them.
‘But ultimately they love him and want him to be happy,’ they add.
As for his Scientology minders, they just want Cruise to be with a woman who doesn’t try to get in the way of his relationship with Miscavige, says Tony Ortega.
It doesn’t exactly add up to a barrel of fun for any woman ready to take the plunge. It simply beggars belief that any woman is mad enough to marry Tom Cruise.
As they read of the star’s romantic plans for young Emily Thomas, her friends and family must surely be hoping she has other ideas.
Katie feared he might abduct their daughter
‘If you’re with him, you’re with
Scientology’ ‘He always has a tough time being alone’
ThE constant clash of huge egos, the stress of hectic schedules and the long hours spent standing around waiting on petulant actors — the film industry’s a tough enough place to work at the best of times. But spare a thought this weekend for the friends and family of Emily Thomas, a young British production assistant who’s reportedly in the running for the starring role of a lifetime.
Industry insiders say the pretty 22-year-old personal assistant to Tom Cruise has so captivated the 53-year-old Mission: Impossible star that he is about to propose marriage to her.
The attentions of one of the world’s most powerful movie stars could go to any young woman’s head, especially one who may want to get ahead in an industry where the thrice-divorced Cruise has long been treated as a god. But one wonders whether her nearest and dearest would share any excitement over such a star-studded match.
Sequels can always be hit and miss, but history would suggest that getting the lead role in ‘Mrs Tom Cruise IV’ may not be the happiest fate for any young woman. If it were a film, chances are it would be a harrowing psychological thriller rather than a breezy romcom.
Rumours have been circulating for months that the scarily focused Cruise had found in Miss Thomas the romance that has been absent from his life since he split up with previous wife Katie holmes.
Emily started working for Cruise only last year as his on-set assistant for Rogue Nation, the fifth instalment of the Mission: Impossible f r anchise. I n photos of t hem together, they certainly seem to have a chemistry that one doesn’t always see in the relationship between superstar and general dogsbody.
It didn’t escape anyone — least of all Cruise, surely — what an uncanny resemblance Miss Thomas has to Katie holmes. It’s not just the hazel eyes and brown hair — they have a similar-shaped face, eyes, nose, lips and eyebrows. Late last year came reports that Cruise had a ‘crush’ on her and was always flirting on set.
Emily was by his side again this year when he filmed Mena, a thriller about a drug smuggler who works as an informant for the CIA.
It’s fair to say that they have yet to be photographed exchanging any intimacies beyond a smile and a lingering glance. The Cruise camp has unofficially poured cold water on claims of a love affair, although there has been no formal comment.
From Emily, embarrassingly the same age as Isabella — the daughter Cruise adopted with second wife Nicole Kidman — there hasn’t been a peep. And there may never be, say insiders.
For at times comic, at times tragic, but always ultimately toxic, Tom Cruise’s bizarre love life is an immensely sensitive issue. It’s not just that by all accounts he’s a little odd, it’s also because anyone who marries him is essentially also marrying his beloved Church of Scientology.
As celebrity figurehead of the controversial organisation, regarded in some countries as a dangerous cult, Cruise has always put his religion first and foremost in his private life — with dire consequences for the women he shared it with.
‘If you’re going to be with Tom Cruise, you’re going to be with Scientology,’ Tony Ortega, a veteran Scientology expert told me yesterday. ‘ he lives with his sisters, who are Scientologists, and his adopted children, who are also Scientologists.’
Long-time Scientology watchers see the church’s controlling hand in talk of this new romance. They suspect Scientologists are encouraging speculation to distract attention from a new documentary, Going Clear, which makes a string of damning claims about the church and Cruise’s involvement with it.
With Rogue Nation coming out next week, Cruise can now expect to be peppered with questions about the romance in publicity interviews, rather than embarrassing ones about Scientology.
But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t fallen in love again. Few who have followed Cruise and Scientology are surprised by talk of another wedding.
The actor — who has a track record of proposing soon after meeting a woman — has not really been romantically linked to anyone since his acrimonious split from third wife Katie holmes in 2012. That same year he was linked to 26-year- old Cynthia Jorge, a New York restaurant manager. But they insisted they were simply friends, and talk of romance soon fizzled out.
‘People who know him say Tom Cruise has a tough time being alone. he always wants t o be in a relationship,’ said Mr Ortega. ‘I’m surprised that he’s been this long without someone.’
his church will also be keen on his remarrying. ‘It has some surprisingly conservative views on marriage and family,’ said Mr Ortega.
Fuelling his loneliness no doubt will be his separation from his daughter Suri, who now lives with her mother in New York and sees little of her father. Although the evidence suggests he is just as close to the church as ever, it was recently claimed Cruise was to leave Scientology so he can spend more time with Suri. Sources claimed that because the church had no control over her upbringing, they were close t o declaring Suri a ‘ suppressive person’ — essentially, a pariah who should be avoided.
If Cruise really has set his heart on Emily Thomas, Tinseltown insiders told me yesterday, it would illustrate how low his star has sunk in hollywood. Not as a film star: he still pulls in the punters for his films, even if, at 53, he is looking a little long in the tooth for his action-packed roles.
No, say sources, the fact he is being romantically linked with his PA, a complete unknown, shows that the days when he could have his pick of hollywood’s most gl amorous actresses are over. he was married to Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman and Katie holmes, as well as having affairs with Rebecca De Mornay, Cher and Penelope Cruz.
Senior Scientology defectors have claimed that in 2004, after Cruise split up from Cruz because she allegedly failed to embrace the religion, church leaders auditioned beautiful starlets to replace her. They included Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan and Kate Bosworth.
Cruise, it is claimed, allowed elders to summon the unwitting stars to read for a non-existent part in a Mission: Impossible film. Such was the pulling power of the Cruise brand.
If, as hollywood sources argue, women stars now run screaming from any romantic connection to him, Cruise and his Scientology friends have only themselves to blame.
Mimi Rogers introduced the young actor to Scientology but their 1987 marriage lasted just two years.
According to former top Scientologist Marty Rathbun, the church had a hand in ending both the Rogers marriage and the next one, to Kidman. Both women, he said, made