Tom Cruise might be one of the most successful movie stars in the world,
but it wasn't always easy for the "Top Gun" star. How did his relationship with his father
affect his own adult relationships? And did he really almost leave Scientology?
These are the tragic details about Tom Cruise.
In the early 2000s, Tom Cruise gave a lengthy interview to Parade about his upbringing. He
was born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York, with the birth name of Thomas Cruise Mapother IV.
His father held the same name, one generation back, and his mother was Mary Lee. With three
sisters to care for along with their son, the Mapothers struggled to make ends meet.
Mapother III had no luck keeping down a job as an electrical engineer,
and the family was often on the move as he sought work.
But if Mapother III didn't provide, he exercised control over his family in other ways.
In "Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography," Andrew Morton suggests that the father's handling of his
son crossed the line from tough love into physical abuse more than once. And apart
from any life lessons, the actor recalled that when life didn't go his father's way,
he took it out on those around him.
Bullies can latch onto anything to use as an attack,
and the young Tom Cruise gave them plenty of ammunition. He was often the new kid;
being part of a family that was always moving, Cruise claimed he went to 15 schools in 12 years.
Andrew Morton gives the number as five in "Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography." Either way,
coming from a poor family, he wore the "wrong" clothes. He was on the short side even then.
One of the biggest targets on Cruise's back was his struggles in the classroom. From an early age,
he found it impossible to read and ended up in remedial classes, attracting more
attention from bullies. He was 7 years old by the time a school-referred psychiatrist
diagnosed him with dyslexia. Having a name for the problem didn't immediately solve it,
however. Cruise found the experience of being "labeled" upsetting,
and he later traced his rejection of psychiatry as a science to this early diagnosis.
Lots of kids pick up odd jobs around the neighborhood. For a young Tom Cruise,
odd jobs were how he paid for movie tickets, which were a passion of his
from age 4 on. In the days before home video, YouTube, and streaming,
the only way to take in the movies was at the theater. So a portion of Cruise's income
from mowing lawns, delivering papers, and other bits of work went to the box office.
Circumstances wouldn't allow him to sink all his earnings into movie tickets, however.
Money was so tight for Cruise's household that, on one occasion, they forwent Christmas presents
and gave each other poems instead. Cruise's mother attempted to keep up with multiple jobs,
but any contribution her children could make was welcome and often needed. So a portion
of Cruise's income from his neighborhood tasks went toward the necessities of life.
These days, Tom Cruise can hardly be mentioned without some reference to
the Church of Scientology, of which he is so prominently – and so controversially – a part.
But Cruise grew up in a traditional Catholic household, and well into his college years,
Catholicism is where he sought spirituality. For a time, according to Andrew Morton's "Tom Cruise:
An Unauthorized Biography," Cruise entertained the idea of becoming a Franciscan priest.
To that end, he enrolled in the St. Francis Seminary of Cincinnati,
though the appeal wasn't entirely a matter of faith. Cruise later explained,
"We didn't have the money back then, and I went for the education for a year, and it was free."
The experience of seminary was apparently a happy one for Cruise. Sports, hobby shops,
and even the discipline of boarding school life appealed to him. Maintaining that discipline
proved a challenge, however, when there was no shortage of local girls. Cruise, even then,
possessed the gift of charm. He would later say that women were too appealing to sacrifice
even to the Franciscan order, and he and the seminary have claimed that he left voluntarily.
The abuse that Thomas Cruise Mapother III inflicted on his family came to a head in
1974. This, writes Andrew Morton in "Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography," is when
Mapother's verbal attacks, secret drinking, and instability became too much for his wife
Mary Lee. In a momentous decision for a devout Catholic woman of her generation,
she took the children, left Mapother, and filed for divorce. It was a significant financial gamble
as well as a personal upheaval; Mapother was not prepared to provide child support.
Tom Cruise, 12 at the time, did not mourn his father's absence from home. When Mapother followed
his family to Kentucky and attempted to reach out to his son, Cruise firmly rejected him. Morton
writes that, when Mapother remarried, Cruise put in a dutiful appearance at the ceremony. Once it
was over, he abstained from all contact with his father, his new stepmother, and his stepsiblings.
Some effort at reconciliation was made in the 1980s, after Cruise's acting career had begun.
By then, Mapother was gravely ill, wasting away from cancer in his late 40s. He imposed
a condition on the reunion: no questions about the past. Cruise accepted his father's terms and
met with him in the hospital. Later, he could only describe the final encounter as "sad."
"Do you feel that that chapter ended more or less satisfactorily at that point?"
"Yeah, more or less satisfactorily."
Tom Cruise hasn't hesitated to defend Scientology. After all, he credits it with helping him overcome
his learning disabilities. But as more details of the organization's unsavory practices have
emerged over the years, Cruise's membership in Scientology and the role it plays in his life
have been fodder for rumor, tabloid gossip, and investigative books and documentaries.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cruise joined Scientology during his first marriage,
to Mimi Rogers. While he maintains that he didn't join because of Rogers, she did bring him into a
family with longstanding ties. Rogers' parents had connections to L. Ron Hubbard himself. As a means
to grow his following, Hubbard developed "Project Celebrity," a targeted recruitment of the famous,
once-famous, or soon-to-be-famous. Cruise's star was on the rise when he and Rogers got
together in the 1980s, and church head David Miscavige saw the acquisition
of such a hot up-and-comer as a coup at a precarious time in Scientology's history.
According to Lawrence Wright's "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief,"
Rogers became a hindrance to Scientology's ambitions for Cruise. While she helped to bring
him in, her family was no longer in good standing with the church. The marriage
was already troubled, but church "mediators" helped to push Cruise and Rogers apart in 1990.
From its very beginning, Scientology has attracted chilling accusations.
Ex-member Leah Remini's A&E series "Scientology and the Aftermath"
was an often damning insight into many of the charges, including fraud, extortion,
obstruction of justice, intimidation of critics, and brainwashing.
Remini described Tom Cruise as brainwashed when promoting her series through Variety, though she
also stated to The Daily Beast that Cruise is well aware of the truth of the organization.
Cruise has never claimed to be brainwashed and never acknowledged any uncouth practices
by his religion. He hasn't spoken of any issues he has with the church either. But according to
The Daily Beast, after his first marriage to Mimi Rogers ended and he became romantically involved
with Nicole Kidman in the 1990s, Cruise's attachment to Scientology wavered. In part,
this was due to his infatuation with Kidman; the attraction had already led
him away from his first marriage. Kidman became a Scientologist for Cruise, but when she reached
her limit with the church and its leader, David Miscavige, Cruise appeared to follow her lead.
Another factor keeping Cruise away from Scientology was Stanley Kubrick – or rather,
the filming of Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" in England. The record-breaking 46-week
shoot meant that Cruise and Kidman were out of easy reach of Miscavige,
and away from the household staff who spied on them on his behalf. But Miscavige,
who coveted Cruise as a tempting lure for recruits, was unwilling to let him go.
Tom Cruise was deeply in love with Nicole Kidman when they first met and worked together and
the Church of Scientology was there to fan the flames. Journalist Tony Ortega is quoted by the
Beast as saying that the organization's leaders felt their romance would be a passing fancy,
a way to separate Cruise from his then-wife Mimi Rogers. Cruise becoming so committed
to Kidman that he eventually married her was unexpected – and unwelcome.
Like Cruise, Kidman came from a Catholic background and once entertained a lifetime of
service within a Catholic order. But Kidman's father was also a prominent psychologist,
a profession that is among the great evils inflicting humanity according to
Scientology's teachings. Even worse was her stepping into Scientology, leaving,
and taking Cruise with her. Sources have claimed that church head David Miscavige personally
ordered an operation to sink Cruise and Kidman's marriage and get the star back in the church.
The lengths Scientology went to break up the couple included sending private investigators
after Kidman, tapping her phones, and subjecting Cruise himself to relentless "auditing."
This practice, a thorough drilling of a subject on intimate details about their lives,
is among Scientology's most powerful tools for retaining control over its
members according to HuffPost. The church's efforts came together just
as they had in Cruise's relationship with Rogers; he filed for divorce in 2001.
"But Nicole was a major part of your life, the love of your life at the time."
"I loved Nic, very much, there's no question."
After filing for divorce from Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise insisted to Vanity Fair,
"She knows why, and I know why."
But according to Andrew Morton's "Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography,"
Cruise's request – delivered by a third party – was a shocking turn for his wife.
She tried to enter marriage counseling, as offered by the Church of Scientology according to Lawrence
Wright's "Going Clear," but Cruise was not receptive. Complicating matters for Kidman
was her learning that she was pregnant with the child of the man so coldly leaving her.
Early on in their marriage, according to Kidman, she and Cruise were expecting. But it was an
ectopic pregnancy, a condition where the fertilized egg attaches outside the uterus. It was
a devastating experience for Kidman, and doctors suggested that the couple should avoid trying for
another baby. Years later, at the end of her relationship with Cruise, Kidman miscarried.
Divorce and childhood trauma can breed deep unhappiness in people, affecting their
ability to emote and connect. Eileen Berlin, Tom Cruise's first personal manager from 1980 to 1983,
suspects that to be true of her former client. In an interview with the Daily Mail in 2012,
she remembered the Cruise she first met as an explosive young man.
Though he could be, in her words, "sweet, respectful,
and mannerly to a fault," Cruise was also prone to flying off the handle.
Cruise's anger didn't always come out fast and hot. Sometimes he made constructive use of it,
as in his early role in "Taps." At other times, it manifested as a wall of resistance. Berlin said,
"He was so private. He couldn't show his true feelings. You would get so far
and he would close down."
For Berlin, who put Cruise up in her apartment for several months in 1980, the most obvious source
of this reserve and her client's mood swings was lingering resentment toward his father.
It was the same issue, says Berlin, that opened Cruise up to the overtures of Scientology.
"You know, I feel privileged. That's how I feel. I feel I live a privileged life."
During their 10-year marriage, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman adopted two children: Isabella
and Connor. After Cruise's divorce from her, Kidman was marked by the Church of Scientology
as a "Suppressive Person," those the church regards as antisocial personalities standing
in the way of members' spiritual development. Such persons are to be avoided, or "disconnected" from.
Not only did Cruise disconnect from his former wife, but his children, who have since been raised
as Scientologists, were subjected to "reeducation" to see their mother in that light. For her part,
Kidman told the Sun in 2019 that she and her children with Cruise were re-connecting.
Years later, after Cruise's brief and well-publicized marriage to
Katie Holmes ended in a filing for divorce by Holmes that caught her husband off-guard,
the shoe was on the other foot. In another article for The Daily Beast, Amy Zimmerman reports it was
fear of Scientology's potential influence over their daughter, Suri, that helped motivate
Holmes to leave Cruise. It was a fact he was reluctant to say aloud during legal proceedings,
but he eventually had to concede the point. And despite his claims to the contrary, entertainment
reporters suggest that Cruise has often been absent from Suri's life since the divorce.
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus,
even more Grunge videos about your favorite celebrities are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.