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The Couch Jump That Rocked Hollywood

Tom Cruise’s 2005 appearance on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ was an iconic episode of television—and a turning point for how we discuss and understand celebrities

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In the spring of 2005, an unknown 20-something in California uploaded a 19-second video of himself to the internet. “Me at the zoo,” the first YouTube video, featured cofounder Jawed Karim rambling about animals. “The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks,” a man said, gesturing toward an elephant enclosure. It was boring, but it was the beginning of something.

That same spring, Karim’s YouTube quickly found one of its first hits. Its origins were far less obscure than a tech guy on a field trip. At the time, Tom Cruise had a more-than-reasonable claim to the title of biggest celebrity in America. He was the movie star, a leading man with mom-approved handsomeness, a nimble physicality, and a gung-ho intensity that played on the big screen as magnetic instead of disturbed. He counted Top Gun , Jerry Maguire , and two Mission: Impossible movies among the idol-making roles under his small belt. Meanwhile, Oprah Winfrey had already established herself as not only the biggest celebrity on daytime television, but the biggest celebrity in media. She’d made the careers of Drs. Phil and Oz. She’d debuted O, the Oprah Magazine . She’d hollered “You get a car!” to a euphoric crowd. Cruise’s May 2005 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show seemed destined to be yet another fluffy meeting of monstrously famous minds. Instead, traditional media’s powerhouse duo was about to provide the new video-uploading service with a clip that would demonstrate the format’s growth potential far better than a rinky-dink recording of a random dude musing about zoos.

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Before Cruise came out on stage that day, the crowd at Chicago’s Harpo Studios had already hyped itself into an ecstatic frenzy, whooping and clapping and jumping in overwhelmed pleasure at being in the presence of Winfrey, in her space, living their best lives. By 2005, Oprah had transformed her daytime talk show from a variation on Phil Donahue’s talk theme into something new, something that took the voyeuristic thrills of seeing televised confessions and elevated them with the language of self-help seminars and the polish of Hollywood. “Oprah is sitting in the throne of American pop culture,” said WBEZ anchor Jenn White on the podcast Making Oprah , describing Oprah’s cultural cachet in the early aughts. “She commands a regular worldwide audience of tens of millions. She can turn a book into a bestseller, a product into a trend, and people into stars.” At that point, Christianity Today had identified Oprah as “one of the most influential spiritual leaders in America.” Her audiences resembled gaga congregants.

Cruise was in Chicago to talk about his upcoming movie, Steven Spielberg’s remake of War of the Worlds . Instead of sticking to the promotional script, though, the compact action star gushed about his new girlfriend, actress Katie Holmes. “You’re gone,” Oprah said, searching for words to describe Cruise’s over-the-top infatuation. Within 15 minutes, Cruise had leapt onto Oprah’s couch in a spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm for his personal life. Cruise’s offbeat showboating was memorable in part because of its unusual setting; The Oprah Winfrey Show was where celebrities traipsed to shine up their reputations and get a warm embrace from a sympathetic fellow star. Oprah would polish, not grill. But Oprah, usually so masterful at empathizing with her guests, appeared to be at a loss. “You’re gone,” she repeated. The charismatic preacher had been sidelined by an even more earnest proselytizer.

People hated it. More importantly, they loved to hate it. Most importantly, they loved to talk about hating it. Divorced from its context and remixed into YouTube clips and GIFs, Cruise’s couch outburst looked far more bizarre than it had during the episode, when at least the studio audience had been equally hyped up and Oprah had encouraged him to talk about his personal life. Within the context of the episode, Cruise’s behavior was strange but not outrageous. On the internet, isolated and amplified into a single furniture-leaping moment, it looked like an A-list meltdown . The most popular spoof was called “Tom Cruise Kills Oprah,” where Cruise appeared to kill Oprah with lightning. Family Guy parodied it. Even Sesame Street eventually parodied it. But the couch clip went beyond launching parodies and viral videos. The response to the Cruise episode signaled a changing of the guard in Hollywood media, from a pecking order where publicists and studios could strike deals with access-hungry press toward a more democratic and chaotic media landscape. Even though Cruise had been in a terrific mood during his Oprah appearance, it was appropriate that his tomfoolery was reframed to look far more aggressive than it was. The internet and the media were about to get much sharper.

“Tom’s couch-jumping coincided with the rise of gossip blogs,” Matt James, who runs the celebrity gossip site Pop Culture Died in 2009, told The Ringer . “The entire incident became a testament to the way public opinion could form online in the pre-Twitter era, and how damaging it could be in the long run.”

Longtime Hollywood gossip blog Lainey Gossip also credited Cruise’s leap onto Oprah’s couch with galvanizing the media landscape. “This rise of the gossip blog quickly accelerated,” site creator Elaine Lui wrote in 2015. “Celebrities were not being contained the way they used to be. And the PEOPLE and Entertainment Tonight coverage just wasn’t cutting it anymore. Not when these illusions were so quickly being destroyed. This incident became one of the most critical chapters in the Origin Story of Internet Gossip.” The intense online response to Cruise’s convention-breaking presaged a shift in how celebrity freakouts were covered, as it was one of the first major entertainment-world meltdowns to saturate the blogging world. “There was something so personal, so oversharey, so necessarily engaged with the audience in Cruise’s couch-jumping that it set the tone for the kind of one-person media circus we’d expect and enjoy in the years to come, to varying degrees of sadness (Britney Spears), amazement (Charlie Sheen) and despicableness (Chris Brown),” Gawker ’s Rich Juzwiak wrote in 2012. While the word “meme” hadn’t yet entered the mainstream lexicon, Cruise’s furniture leap went viral. “Culturally, it was, in my mind, one of the first celebrity memes,” Brandon Ogborn, the writer behind The TomKat Project , an excellent play examining Tom Cruise’s reputation, told The Ringer . “That clip was reenacted so many times. It was kind of a watershed moment for internet culture.”

Along with memes came a cascade of internet commentary on Cruise’s behavior, most of it overwhelmingly negative. While Oprah’s studio audience had been pleased with his effusiveness, the story line soured in the digital world. “Now, whenever something happens in the news, we can go online and quickly find the tide in which public opinion is turning. In the early days of the internet, it wasn’t that distinct,” James said. “That changed with Tom. The people who watched Tom’s appearance and felt it was maybe even the slightest bit heartwarming went online to find that the majority opinion was Tom had lost his mind.”

It was an exciting time for bloggers, and terrible timing for Cruise. He had fired his longtime publicist, Pat Kingsley, in March 2004. Kingsley was a powerhouse with a viselike grip on the dicks of traditional outlets. “She was adamant about keeping Cruise out of the tabloids. At press junkets, she demanded that journalists sign contracts swearing not to sell their quotes to the supermarket rags,” film critic Amy Nicholson wrote for LA Weekly in 2014, arguing that internet culture was to blame for Cruise’s fall from grace. “Then Kingsley expanded her reach and insisted that all TV interviewers destroy their tapes after his segment had aired.” Without Kingsley, Cruise didn’t have his usual PR fixer at hand to tell him what not to do, to tell him how to course-correct once the backlash began, or to tell the press to lay off. Instead, Cruise had replaced the flinty Kingsley with his sister, Lee Anne DeVette, a fellow Scientologist. The public reaction to his romance with Holmes was no good even before The Incident. According to a People poll, the majority of respondents saw the relationship as a publicity stunt . “We can’t get enough of the TomKat show because eventually the paint will start to chip and we will hopefully see all the ugliness as openly as we’ve been shoved the lovey-dovey bullshit,” Perez Hilton wrote. Cruise’s past habit of keeping his private life to himself and manicuring his public image had given him an idyllic but distinctly artificial sheen, one that may have counterintuitively exacerbated the response when he finally stepped out of line. “He had never done anything publicly wrong before,” Nicholson told The Ringer . “He’d always been so perfect.” Cruise’s over-the-top display of hyper-public affection, possibly made more intense by his desire to prove that his love was real, backfired. Instead of making people think he was a romantic, Cruise just made people think he was weird.

He quickly got weirder, and darker. Shortly after his couch leap, Cruise started a feud with Brooke Shields by dismissing her experience with postpartum depression. He went on Today to go even further, insisting that psychiatry and psychiatric medicine were dangerous. While Cruise was a longtime Scientologist, he had never openly advocated for the abusive group’s more controversial beliefs so publicly before. “It was a time when he really just let himself go, and let his freak flag fly. And it was also a time when he was really proselytizing for Scientology. I think it was a huge explosion of press that was bad press, because the Tom Cruise machine just stopped,” Ogborn said. “He said, This is who I am, I’m going to jump on that couch, I’m going to tell Matt Lauer he’s glib. ”

In less than a year, Cruise contorted his reputation from a hard-working, eccentric leading man into Hollywood’s premiere guileless kook. “Cruise: I will eat the placenta,” a 2006 Daily Mail headline , is a good example of the sort of news he generated. When California banned the sale of ultrasounds for personal use that year, it was known as the “Tom Cruise law” because Cruise had publicly purchased an ultrasound machine to view his daughter in the womb. South Park went for the jugular, as expected, but ridicule came from all over. Noah Baumbach wrote a New Yorker piece where the joke was that his dog was stupid and enthusiastic … just like Tom Cruise. Even Lauren Bacall dissed him to reporters. People still showed up for Cruise movies. War of the Worlds had a huge opening , but studios feared that Cruise’s bankability was tainted after Mission: Impossible III made nearly $150 million less worldwide than its predecessor. Cruise’s reputation was undeniably threatened. His Q rating, used to measure celebrity appeal, dropped 40 percent. “From that point on, we all accepted Tom Cruise was crazy,” James said. “It was a done deal.”

Cruise’s uninhibited media blunder bender cost him a lucrative, long-term production deal with Paramount. His behavior was blamed for the deal’s destruction. “His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount,” Viacom chairman Sumner M. Redstone told The Wall Street Journal . The Oprah Winfrey Show , meanwhile, continued on as an unstoppable cultural force. From all accounts, as much as the couch-jumping episode yoked Oprah and Cruise together for eternity as a punch line, it also ruffled feathers at Harpo. “She was not invited to his wedding, and he was not invited for a very long time to come interview with her,” Ogborn pointed out, noting that Harpo employees would frequently come talk to him after the Chicago run of The TomKat Project to discuss that period of time. “They said she was fucking pissed when it happened.”

Regardless of Oprah’s personal opinion of Cruise’s behavior, the interview didn’t hurt her professionally. A mock set from the show is now on display in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture as part of an exhibit on Winfrey. There was no lasting damage to her legacy. (Curators declined to comment on the role of the interview in her cultural history.) If anything, the couch-jumping episode only provided a bolstering example of Oprah presiding over must-watch TV. The show’s guiding ethos focused on going big and doing the best, resulting in ever-more-elaborate gift giveaways and surprises for the audience. While Cruise’s antics might have thrown off the dynamic between guest and host that Oprah preferred, his interview ultimately fit the bill for the gripping, unexpected, and wholly memorable. “Tom’s televised freakout was just another notch in her belt,” James said. Talk-show hosts now manufacture segments specifically to do well on YouTube and other online platforms, but it was Oprah who generated the first viral talk-show clip.

The incident certainly did not kill Cruise’s career, either. In 2008, his comic turn in Tropic Thunder helped undercut his reputation for unrelenting self-seriousness. (The same year, Cruise reunited with Oprah for a much calmer interview.) Cruise maintained his career throughout his reputational turmoil by sticking with Mission: Impossible and thematically similar films. “He’s always done such great work with this franchise, but he’s almost clinging to it nervously, like he’s afraid to let go and take a real risk,” Nicholson said. “He’ll take risks inside the film with stunts, but he’s not taking risks inside his own career, like doing the dramatic work that marked a lot of what he did in the ’80s, or by chasing an Oscar, which is something he gave up on.” Although he never quite regained his status as a Hollywood golden boy, he has mellowed into an aging statesman of action flicks—and anyway, his divorce from Katie Holmes and continued association with Scientology have left a longer-lasting stink on his name than his exuberant talk-show appearance. In 2015, GQ heralded “Cool Tom Cruise.” This summer, he is starring in the sixth Mission: Impossible movie. The critical response to both the film and Cruise’s performance has been overwhelmingly positive. “What’s always been so ironic to me about the Tom Cruise quote-unquote backlash is that it seemed to me that audiences still really loved him, even if newspapers were telling them that they didn’t,” Nicholson said. “I feel like he’s proving something that never needed to be proven.”

The real legacy of the couch-jumping incident has almost nothing to do with Cruise or Oprah specifically and everything to do with how people reacted online to the moment. Tom and Oprah’s strange conversation, and the reaction it provoked, is now preserved as thousands of digital artifacts, emblematic of how information traveled in the early aughts. Rewatching the episode and the viral videos it spawned feels quaint now. The bloggy media cycle that produced Cruise memes has been replaced by a cesspool of broken newsfeeds smushing conspiracy theories and branded content against real news and irrational presidential tweets with such velocity that it seems deeply unlikely that Cruise’s hop onto a loveseat would provoke much at all in 2018. However, it’s even less likely that Cruise would’ve been able to make it so far into his career without finding his kooky personality exposed as he did in 2005.

Up-and-comers have learned to respond to a different and less controllable form of media attention. There is a whole brand of celebrity in which the famous are expected to engage with fans on social media. Celebrity PR disasters don’t often happen in such glossy settings anymore; instead, they are frequently facilitated by social media and accelerated by fans and detractors who dig up old tweets . The last time a daytime talk-show guest created a media supernova after their appearance, it was Danielle Bregoli, a.k.a. Bhad Bhabie, a.k.a. “Cash Me Ousside” Girl, who parlayed a viral moment shit-talking on Dr. Phil into a viable rap career . I doubt Bregoli knows about Tom Cruise’s Oprah appearance, but her own twist on the daytime meme underscores how much has changed since Cruise took his happy hop. Performative, contrived freakiness in front of a live studio audience can be an asset now. The big leap is figuring out how to navigate internet criticism without spinning out—a frequently impossible mission.

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Tom Cruise Jumped On Oprah's Couch And Lost His Mind 11 Years Ago

Entertainment Writer, The Huffington Post

Eleven years ago today, actor Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah Winfrey's couch like a trampoline when he appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Cruise declared his love for then girlfriend (and future ex-wife) Katie Holmes and hopped up on the furniture before Oprah said, "He's gone. He's gone. The boy is gone."

The daytime host was more right than she knew. Though Cruise's name is still a big box-office draw, these days, he is better known for being an outspoken advocate for Scientology and for his public antics. The couch jump marked the first shift in Tom Cruise's image away from the heartthrob he'd been. (Pop quiz: Which movie was Tom Cruise promoting when he appeared on "Oprah" in 2005? Answer: It was "War of the Worlds," but no one remembers because he jumped on Oprah's couch.)

The same year as Couchgate, Cruise got in hot water for criticizing actress Brooke Shields for using antidepressant Paxil to treat her postpartum depression. He later got in an argument with Matt Lauer on " The Today Show" for his criticism of psychiatry.

As for his romance with Holmes, Cruise has been divorced from the "Dawson's Creek" star since 2012. He is also reportedly feuding with actress and former Scientology member Leah Remini over her tell-all memoir , which made many claims about Cruise and his family, including one that he had a meltdown over cookie dough.

What's up with Jerry Maguire now? He recently wrapped up filming "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back," and there are rumors of a "Top Gun" sequel . In Sunday night's premiere of AMC series "Preacher, " an unknown force possessed a number of religious figures, including Cruise, which caused the actor's head to explode on the show (real-life Cruise reportedly wasn't happy about the joke ).

Cruise may still be a movie star, but he's mostly a Scientology punchline at this point. Jumping on that fateful couch was just the tip of the iceberg.

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Popular in the community, from our partner, more in entertainment.

Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah's couch 16 years ago and it hasn't aged well

In May 2005, Tom Cruise momentarily lost the run of himself and trampled all over Oprah's couch as he proclaimed his love for Katie Holmes during an interview.

After months of speculation that the pair were together, Tom finally spoke of their relationship on Oprah's chat show and sent the host and viewers in the studio into the frenzy with his antics.

A month before this, Tom and Katie -- known as TomKat for a period -- made their first public appearance together in Rome, making them the most talked-about Hollywood couple of the time.

So, you can only imagine the mileage fans, haters, and the media all got out that *that* Oprah interview.

The actor , then 42, wasn't appearing on the show to lep about, and shout his love for the Dawson's Creek star , then 26, but instead to talk about his upcoming movie War of the Worlds also starring 11-year-old Dakota Fanning.

The interview was happening as Oprah's talk show was at the height of its popularity and audience members were regularly leaving with cars and a feeling of having been in the presence of royalty.

With the excitement in the studio already high, Oprah introduced Tom to the crowd, and, well, it all went downhill from there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQgXEkL3NV4

At the time, some called it sweet watching Tom talk about his new romance, however, I never felt it right to categorise it as 'sweet' but rather cringe-inducing.

'You're gone,' Oprah said of Tom's first pumping and victory laps of the studio -- a fairly appropriate and presumingly unintentionally Irish way of describing the moment.

As the frenzy in the studio began to die down with Tom's ongoing victory lap, Oprah took the reigns and prompted Tom to create another headline moment.

'Get Katie out here,' the host told Tom as the actor headed for backstage to push -- literally -- his new girlfriend out in front of the cameras and the hysterical viewers.

A reluctant Katie joined Tom and embraced Oprah as audience members continued to exert themselves at the sight of the pair together.

The moment was all over celebrity blogs and made his relationship with Katie the only celebrity love story worth talking about for the foreseeable.

Within months, Katie and Tom announced they were expecting their first child and a year later, the couple was married in a Scientologist ceremony in front of many A-lister pals.

Some 16 years later, with Katie and Tom long divorced and their daughter Suri now celebrating her 15th birthday, looking back at this iconic TV moment feels totally removed from where we are now.

The moment continues to be a pop culture reference for many who will think of Tom when gushing about a new love or testing out a new sofa.

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Let's revisit the Tom Cruise/Oprah's couch incident

It was one of the most-watched moments in the Internet’s relatively brief history. When Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah’s couch and declared his love for Katie Holmes, it was the daytime TV moment for a DVR, GIF-ready age.

But, as Amy Nicholson reports for L.A. Weekly , the moment we all thought we saw never happened. He never jumped up and down on the couch; he simply stood. The nitty-gritty of the infamous May 2005 Oprah appearance is but one revelation in her fascinating piece, How YouTube and Internet Journalism Destroyed Tom Cruise, Our Last Real Movie Star .

In the article, Nicholson explores how Tom Cruise went from the biggest movie star in the world to an Internet joke (who still manages to open films), with fascinating insight that attempts to explain the context behind the Oprah appearance (for example, that Cruise was playing to an audience that was quite different than bloggers), as well as larger points about that time period — it’s hard to believe all that media craziness was nine years ago.

As Nicholson points out, the Oprah Couch Incident happened at a time with a lot of rapid changes in entertainment culture — the launch of PerezHilton.com, the growth of TMZ, the inundation of camera phones making everyone paparazzi, etc. The piece is interesting from a How We Got Here angle, as well as its ability to shed some light on what publicity meant in the ’90s versus now — Nicholson also gets great scoop about how that infamous Matt Lauer/Tom Cruise interview came to be (never underestimate a good publicist).

For old times’ sake, watch the Cruise clip below, and then go read Nicholson’s full article :

Relive the Moment When Tom Cruise Jumped On Oprah's Couch

Updated on 5/23/2015 at 5:30 PM

On May 23, 2005, Tom Cruise showed his incredible cat-like agility by jumping on Oprah Winfrey's couch. Ten years later, we celebrate this moment that went down in pop culture history.

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On the Media

He didn’t jump on the couch.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: We know how in this digital age even the smallest misstep can wreck a reputation. We've seen it so often it’s easy to forget that in our ultra-connected camera phone-toting social media-soaked world, we didn't always operate at such a rapid boil. But cast your mind back, if you can, to viral media's Stone Age. I’m talking almost exactly nine years ago, May 23rd, 2005. Tom Cruise is sitting on Oprah Winfrey's couch. The studio audience is stacked with preselected Cruise fanatics.

[CLIP]:

[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE/FANS SCREAMING]

OPRAH WINFREY: You’ve got to calm yourselves.

[CONTINUED SCREAMS]

They’ve got to calm themselves.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The room is electrified by movie love, but the frantic fans aren’t interested in Tom Cruise's new movie, War of the Worlds . They want the dish on his new girl, Katie Holmes, America's sweetheart. And Oprah, ruffling Tom’s hair, holding his hand, touching his knee, wants to give them what they want.

OPRAH WINFREY: Tom, does that mean you’re gonna ask her to marry you?

TOM CRUISE: What just happened –

OPRAH WINFREY: Does that mean you’re gonna ask her to marry you, Tom?

TOM CRUISE: Oprah – Oprah, I – today?

[LAUGHTER]

OPRAH WINFREY: No, does that mean you’re going to ask her to marry you?

TOM CRUISE: I got to discuss it with her.

OPRAH WINFREY: You got to discuss it.

[AUDIENCE SCREAMS]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ever the pro, Oprah digs for deets about the moment love bloomed.

OPRAH WINFREY: When – how soon after meeting her did, did it happen? You must have thought it was gonna happen. That’s why you wanted to meet her, right?

TOM CRUISE: Don’t we have War of the Worlds , too?

OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah, we’re going to come back –

[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]

We will do that, we’re gonna do that. That’s why you’re here.

[TOM, AUIDIENCE LAUGHING]

That’s why you’re here. We’re going to do – we’re going to do that –

TOM CRUISE: How long – okay, so what was the question again?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Tom wants to stop the line of questioning and talk about his new movie. He hears the audience scream every time he moves, so to deflect the emotional inquisition he jumps up and down on Oprah’s couch.

OPRAH WINFREY: Have you ever felt this way before?

[AUDIENCE SCREAMING]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is the moment, now enshrined in pop culture history, that brands Tom Cruise as an unhinged has-been. But the trouble is, it never happened, says Amy Nicholson, head film critic for the LA Weekly.

AMY NICHOLSON : He doesn’t jump on the couch. He gets up and sort of leaps on to stand on it but he never bounces on it like a trampoline. Oprah actually gives him the idea to stand on the couch, as a way of impressing her. At the very start of the episode, she says how happy she was that he attended her Legend Ball, which she had just had two or three days before. And she says to Tom, “I looked over at you and you were standing on your chair, and I loved that enthusiasm.” And I think that implants this idea in his head that if he doesn’t want to answer questions or if he wants to make her happy, he should just stand up again. So he stands up on the couch. And that is how we get Tom Cruise jumping. Because we had this great freeze frame of him in mid-air with his knees bent and Oprah sort of looking surprised, you see the word “jumped” and you picture him actually jumping, which is something that didn’t happen.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: What was going on in the media on the day that Tom Cruise met that fateful couch?

AMY NICHOLSON : May 2005, it’s such a fascinating month. It’s the month that Perez Hilton launched PerezHilton.com, it’s the month that Huffington Post launched, you know, two major sites that showed the industry that you could have a huge revenue stream just by talking about gossip online. These two sites and the success of them, I think, created this echo chamber. I mean, May 2005 even predates TMZ by just a few months.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: As you note in your piece, if your video went viral bandwidth was getting used; it was expensive. But then this little company started and it made it much easier to post these videos.

AMY NICHOLSON : Yeah, a little company called YouTube one week before May, the last week of April, put up their first video, “Me at the Zoo.”

[CLIP]:

JAWED KARIM : All right, so here we are, in front of the elephants. The cool thing about these guys is that they have these really, really, really long trunks.

[END CLIP]

AMY NICHOLSON : YouTube shows up and not only can you put a video up online for free, you can embed in a website. People don’t even have to leave your blog. You can draw traffic to you and all of a sudden we’re learning how to make revenue from viral video, completely new at the time.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I keep thinking though of another viral video, one that was taken wildly out of context during the presidential election, the Howard Dean scream.

HOWARD DEAN (HIGH-PITCHED VOICE ): And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then we're going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House. Yeah!

[CROWD CHEERS][END CLIP]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: He sounded somewhat demented during a campaign stop but, in context, it didn't seem nearly as loony.

How did that get out there, prior to YouTube?

AMY NICHOLSON : We had a news cycle that was going 24/7 on cable channels. That kind of spread into news blogs. I feel like news blogs were a little bit ahead of the time.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Was Tom Cruise one of the first celebrities to stumble into the pitfalls of celebrity viral media?

AMY NICHOLSON : He was definitely the biggest, which I think is why the story of his stumble almost became the story itself and not the facts of what was actually happening.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: He was, you claim, more or less untouchable prior to this moment because he was so, so careful.

AMY NICHOLSON : Tom Cruise keeps his private life incredibly private. Right after Risky Business, he was 22, 23 at the time, he was part of this cool kids group that was about to be dubbed “the brat pack.” He thought, I can’t get lumped in with that because that’s one way to just become the next Judd Nelson and nobody remembers you in ten years.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So after a stay in London, rather than taking on starring roles himself, he returns and chooses to play second fiddle to enormous stars, both of whom win Academy Awards for their roles, Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man and Paul Newman, in this clip, in Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money .

PAUL NEWMAN AS FAST EDDIE FELSON (CHUCKLING) : Big money game.

TOM CRUISE AS VINCENT LAURIA: Yeah, that's right, a big money game. So why don't you take your hands off the girl and let us play, okay, guy?

FAST EDDIE FELSON : What do you care where I put my hand? Why don't you mind your own business?

VINCENT LAURIA : Hey, gramps, put your teeth back in, get your hands off your daughter there and pay attention, you just might learn something here today.

[END CLIP]

AMY NICHOLSON : It’s incredible to think of like a 25-year-old actor, at that moment, choosing the harder option, choosing to try to prove himself as an actor. And Rain Man to me is just a great example because not only did he choose a film about a guy who’s gonna need his autistic brother, but Tom Cruise’s clout made Rain Man the number one hit of the year.

DUSTIN HOFFMAN AS RAYMOND BABBITT: These are not boxer shorts. Mine are boxer shorts.

TOM CRUISE AS CHARLIE BABBITT: What's the difference?

RAYMOND BABBITT: These are Hanes 32.

CHARLIE BABBITT: Underwear is underwear.

RAYMOND BABBITT: These are Hanes 32. My boxer shorts have my name and it says “Raymond.”

CHARLIE BABBITT: All right, all right. When we pass a store, we'll pick you up a pair of boxer shorts.

RAYMOND BABBITT: I get my boxer shorts at Kmart in Cincinnati.

CHARLIE BABBITT: We're not goin’ back to Cincinnati, so don't you just start with that.

RAYMOND BABBITT: 400 Oak Street.

CHARLIE BABBITT: We’re not going back to Cincinnati. You don’t have to go to Cincinnati to pick up boxer shorts.

RAYMOND BABBITT: It’s Oak and Burnett in Cincinnati.

CHARLIE BABBITT: What did I say?

RAYMOND BABBITT: It's Kmart there.

CHARLIE BABBITT: What did I - you hear me, I know you hear me.

RAYMOND BABBITT: My boxer shorts have like –

CHARLIE BABBITT: You don't fool me with this sh- [BLEEP] for a second!

RAYMOND BABBITT: Yours are too tight.

CHARLIE BABBITT: Ray, did you f– [BLEEP] hear what I said? Shut up!

AMY NICHOLSON : Think about that now. In 2014, this is the summer of blockbusters, super-hero movies. He made a film about an autistic grownup not getting along with his brother, number one box office hit.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Talk to me about his management. This seems arcane but actually it, it figures a great deal in your article.

AMY NICHOLSON : Sure. Tom Cruise partnered with Pat Kingsley who’s this very old school incredibly smart publicist. She had a lot of huge clients that she could dole out and then withhold from papers, if they didn't do what she wanted. And she used all of her force to sort of bend journalists to her will. She was determined to keep his name as far away from Star and The Enquirer as possible.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But, ultimately, he replaces her with his sister. Why does he do that?

AMY NICHOLSON : It was a moment where he started to feel like he needed to talk more about Scientology openly. I think that was a tough call for both of them because he wanted to represent his faith which was starting to become under attacks from the media and say, I’m the biggest movie star in the world, let me try to make my religion sound normal to people. And she had the competing interest of having the studios tell her, don’t let him do that, we can’t let our movies get derailed by talk of his religion. He realized, and she realized, that they needed to go their separate ways.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I have to ask you, some of this is clearly self-inflicted.

AMY NICHOLSON : It’s true, but it’s a religion he very clearly believes in deeply that is sort of held up for public ridicule, which is why I tried to even downplay Scientology a bit in the piece.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: A little bit too much, perhaps.

AMY NICHOLSON : Perhaps a little bit too much, but I also just sort of felt like that story’s been told. We know all about Tom Cruise and Scientology. And I find it interesting that we don’t hold up other actors to the same sort of scrutiny for their beliefs. But the sort of things Tom Cruise says about Scientology we tune out when it’s a football player spiking a touchdown and then thanking God. I think it’s a little bit strange that the rest of us do nothing but pick on somebody’s religion.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But that doesn’t excuse him from passing judgment on Brooke Shields for using anti-depressants, does it? This is Tom Cruise speaking to Matt Lauer on The Today Show in 2005.

TOM CRUISE: Before I was a Scientologist I never agreed with psychiatry. And then when I started studying the history of psychiatry, I started realizing more and more and more why I didn't agree with psychiatry. And as far as the Brooke Shields thing is, look, you gotta understand, I really care about Brooke Shields. I want to see her do well. And I know that - psychiatry is – it’s a pseudo-science.

AMY NICHOLSON : He was not trying to legislate his beliefs. Here, he was just expressing an opinion. I wish we sort of directed the ire that we directed towards him equally to the ire of politicians in the public eye who are using their religious beliefs to actually take away medicines.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I think we kind of pick on everyone, don’t we? [LAUGHS]

AMY NICHOLSON : I, I think we pick on him a little bit unfortunately.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The title of your piece in the LA Weekly was, “How YouTube and Internet Journalism Destroyed Tom Cruise, Our Last Real Movie Star.” But you argue he wasn’t destroyed at all; in fact, he’s never had a flop.

AMY NICHOLSON : Exactly. I think what’s real interesting is the perception of his destruction. That summer that Tom Cruise went on Oprah’s couch the story became has Tom Cruise ruined his career by going crazy, and what never got put into the story is the fact that the movie he was promoting, War of the Worlds , was his biggest hit of all time. No matter what the numbers are, if the story exists that his career is over, everything’s been shaped to fit that narrative.

I always say that Tom Cruise is the greatest actor of his generation who’s hiding in plain sight, because after this sort of shakeup where even he was rattled and thought that maybe the public had fallen out of love with him, he decided to do the safest film projects possible, which are sci-fi films, action films and mashups of the sci-fi and action films, to try to prove that he still has box office clout. Occasionally, he’ll show up and be like the best thing in a cameo, like he did a Tropic Thunder.

[CLIP]:

TOM CRUISE AS LES GROSSMAN: You know how you handle an actor? They whine about anything, you pull down their pants and you spank their a- [BLEEP].

ROB : You spank that a-[BLEEP], Les.

AMY NICHOLSON : I think that his character in Tropic Thunder is kind of a joke on Sumner Redstone after firing him from Paramount. The explanation that Redstone gave to the press was, Tom Cruise is a fine actor but he’s committing career suicide and costing us revenue. It’s so strange because he wasn’t. Cruise actually was responsible for making 32 percent of the studio’s entire profits. That’s one actor and 32 percent.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: When exactly did you become a Tom Cruise fan?

AMY NICHOLSON : I became a Tom Cruise fan last year –

[BROOKE LAUGHS]

- while researching my book, actually. But I started to write the book under the same impression that everybody else had of Tom Cruise, that he’s really great as a personality and as a charismatic movie star and that he’s not much as an actor, and I thought in digging into his career I would be exploring - how does an average talent turn himself into a superstar?

And then, going back and actually watching the roles, I realized I’m completely wrong. His whole career has been about trying to prove himself as an actor and almost being a movie star, in spite of himself.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So what do we take away from Tom Cruise’s tar and feathering by viral video?

AMY NICHOLSON : Right now in the media we’re also quick to see a headline, hear of somebody messing up, there’s like an instant shaming. What I’ve taken away from this is even though I see a headline and a video, it doesn’t mean I know the full story. It’s given me a reminder that I need to pause before I shoot off like a mean tweet or, or a joke at somebody else’s expense, because I think reality is a lot more complicated than the internet condenses it.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And he didn’t jump on that couch.

AMY NICHOLSON : And he didn’t jump on that couch! [LAUGHS]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Amy, thank you so much.

AMY NICHOLSON : Thank you, Brooke. This has been great.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Amy Nicholson is the head film critic for the LA Weekly. Her new book is called, Tom Cruise: Anatomy of an Actor , and it will be published by Cahiers du Cinéma at the end of July.

TOM CRUISE AS FRANK T.J. MACKEY : Tame it!

[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

Take it on headfirst with the skills that I will teach you at work and say no!

AUDIENCE : No!

TOM CRUISE AS MACKEY : You will not control me! No!

TOM CRUISE AS MACKEY : You will not take my soul! No!

TOM CRUISE AS MACKEY : You will not win this game! ‘Cause it is a game, guys. You want to think it's not, huh?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: That’s Tom Cruise in Magnolia .

I Rewatched Oprah's 2005 Tom Cruise Interview

On oprah and fandom.

No one listens like Oprah. I have always found her incredibly fascinating, but none more so than when she sits opposite a celebrity for an interview. This isn’t to say that she’s not a great interviewer of ordinary everyday humans, but there’s something about how she manages to disarms celebrities who burn just as brightly as she does. How they feel comfortable opening up to her. It’s been a minute since she’s dropped some fresh interview game on us, which is why Sunday’s interview with Harry and Meghan felt so monumentous.

I’ve written recently about my fascination with Tom Cruise and hosted a discussion thread for subscribers , so when Oprah’s latest interview dominated the media landscape in the days after (and continues to do so) my mind wandered to Oprah’s interview with Cruise on June 23, 2005. I rewatched the interview to revisit my thoughts on Cruise and whether this viral moment (the first viral video on YouTube) was truly that shocking sixteen years later and whether I could glean any new insights into Oprah as an interviewer.

I stand by my analysis that Cruise is “a soulless cipher incredibly skilled at mimicking human emotion.” But as it turns out, that kind of behavior wasn’t just for public consumption. Part of me wants to think Cruise merely had a manic breakdown on national television, but it appears to be the person he actually is. He became a mega celebrity in his late 20s and then was seduced into Scientology where he was surely lauded even more than his fans possibly could. He was not just important in the scope of Hollywood, but he was important to an entire religious cult. Is it any wonder that this man is giddy at the thought of any type of human interaction? That he’s utterly bewildered by how humans interact with one another? What we witnessed in 2005 wasn’t Tom having a breakdown, but it was an alien attempting to forge a connection with the human beings he’d just discovered.

Before Cruise sets foot on Oprah’s stage, she is commanding an audience of screaming, gasping women in near ecstasy. If you weren’t a regular Oprah watcher in its heyday and you’re only seeing it through the eyes of this clip, then you would be forgiven for mistaking the energy in the room as Cruise fandom. No, it’s Oprah fandom. And since she’s left the talk show behind and begun the “respectable elder” portion of her career, what’s gone is the literal insanity that used to surround open. It was parodied constantly before Cruise’s interview. Here was a black woman born into poverty in rural Mississippi who had become the most famous woman in media, perhaps one of the biggest celebrities in the world, and every day you could tune in to see white women screaming in adulation at her presence. If it were the holiday season and she was handing out cars? You might think you were watching a human sacrifice in Midsommar .

The energy is palpable watching a poor quality video in 2021, so imagine the energy Cruise felt backstage watching an audience enraptured by a goddess and waiting for his arrival. He lapped it up. The audience shrieked every time he smiled, every time he mentioned Katie Holmes’ name, every time he went into his pre-rehearsed spiel. One of the oddest moments to me is when he describes how he met Holmes. I know that dating for celebrities is weird, but the idea that he was a celebrity who people often came to for career advice and help (I’d like to know who any of those people are and how helpful he was, I’m assuming Will Smith was one of them) so he decided to use that position to beckon Holmes. Only he wasn’t offering her advice, he was professing his love for her. The description of ordering a celebrity wife feels like something out of 90 Day Fiancé or an ad for Grindr.

What’s also interesting is that he can barely explain why he’s interested in Holmes. He says he’d seen her work before and she was so incredibly talented that he had to meet her. Listen, I love Katie as much as the next person but I doubt this man watching Dawson’s Creek. I suppose Pieces of April and The Gift have their fans and whoever knows what extraordinary acting even means to Cruise: Lauren Bacall once said , “the word 'great' stands for something. When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise.” I disagree, but then again, he’s certainly no Humphrey Bogart, so I’ll give her that.

At one point, a man in the audience asks Cruise a question and he’s stunned that there’s a man in the audience. The idea that a man would show up at Oprah’s show to see him talking about War of the Worlds is bewildering to him, which is odd because that’s the primary audience for his films. But because he’s there to primarily talk about his relationship with Holmes, he seems to have forgotten all about the movie he’s there to promote. He can’t even pretend to care about the other Tom Cruise who shows up — a man who shares the same name as him. It’s the kind of silly thing you’d see on TV all the time back then, but Cruise is more interested in running backstage and grabbing Holmes and forcing her to face the audience.

It wasn’t until after the interview that Cruise realized he’d made a misstep, but Oprah noticed it early on. When he first leaps on the couch she asks if he’s been sleeping. It’s an innocuous question, there are a variety of answers. But it’s telling that he doesn’t blame the film shoot or anything else that could add to his strenuous schedule, he discusses being up all night eating Garrett’s popcorn and Giordano’s pizza with Holmes. All excellent choices, btw, because as I’ve said before the best pizza is from Chicago. Not a joke, just a fact.

Returning to the point I made about Tom’s erratic behavior not just being a symptom of this audience… Oprah brings up how energetic he was the previous evening at her Legends Ball. In a light way, it’s like she’s telling him, “your crazy white ass embarrassed me in front of all these black folks.” But Tina Turner beckoned him to her table, so all was forgiven. She also mentions how he’s utterly puzzled by the idea of other humans. Like when they’re at dinner, he’ll be inquiring if the man pouring the water likes his job and how his day is going. “I love people, not not that much,” Oprah says.

If anything, the interview is much more revealing about who Oprah is now in this moment. Cruise became a punchline for a moment, but it didn’t affect his career in the long run. If anything, it made him retreat into comfortable action movies and stop trying to win Oscars. That’s where those Bacall comments must have stung, by the way. Cruise did at one point consider himself an ACTOR. After this, he was resigned to becoming a movie star.

Oprah on the other hand has retreated from the circus she used to ringlead. We associate Oprah now with presidential endorsements, soft sweaters, and residing on pergolas . Like the one lent to her by a Montecito neighbor (allegedly Rob Lowe’s home, according to Deux Moi). She has recognized that her interview skills are much stronger without a breathless studio audience. She has always commanded star power in her interviews, but as the idea of mega stars fades from the public consciousness, who is left for Oprah to even have sit downs with besides royalty? After all, isn’t she royalty herself? And would she subject royalty to her adoring fans? She herself is barely even associated with the crazed white women who used to lust for vehicles from her.

The most interesting thing about this interview to me is that I cannot imagine Oprah conducting anything like it ever again. She don’t love these hoes like that. I don’t think she ever did.

Ready for more?

Behind the Scenes of Oprah's Surprise Spectacular

Photo: George Burns/Harpo Studios

Photo: Stephanie Snipes/Oprah.com

Photo: George Burns/Oprah.com

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Remember When... Tom Cruise Jumped on Oprah's Couch Because He Was in Love With Katie Holmes?

During a 2005 appearance on the oprah winfrey show , tomkat was unveiled to the world and a couch was changed forever.

Remember When... is a weekly feature every (#Throwback)Thursday where we look back on a moment that changed the world of pop culture forever. Come for the nostalgia, stay for the reminder that you are getting SO OLD.

What Happened: The date was May 23, 2005 (it's worth mentioning, tomorrow is the nine-year anniversary). It was a month after Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes confirmed they were dating, about a year and a half before they'd get married, and seven years before they'd get divorced.

Tom appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show presumably to promote a movie, but mostly to tell the world he was in love with Katie, which involved a lot of bowing on one knee (five times), grabbing Oprah's hands and shaking her (three times), and—after Oprah pointed out, "We've never seen you behave this way before!"—jumping. He didn't jump on the couch. He jumped onto the couch, then just kind of stood there. A minor correction to the collective memory. The audience LOST THEIR MINDS.

REMEMBER WHEN... Lauren Conrad chose love over Paris on The Hills ?

What Else Was Happening: The movie Tom should have been plugging was Spielberg's War of the Worlds , while Katie Holmes transitioned from Dawson's Creek to the big screen in Batman Begins . Both were among the 10 highest earning films of the year. Only one got a sequel. Katie would be recast with Maggie Gyllenhaal .

TomKat wasn't the only big celebrity couple with a big celebrity couple nickname that year: 2005 was the year Mr. & Mrs. Smith hit theaters and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie became Brangelina.

What Lamar Odom Would Say to Ex Khloe Kardashian Today

Royal family member gives insight into william & kate's family dynamic.

Tom Cruise Revealed He Was Intentionally Setup During His Wild Oprah Winfrey Interview

Behind closed doors, Tom Cruise told Seth Rogen how he really felt about the strange Oprah Winfrey interview.

Now if only every Oprah Winfrey interview can be like her time alongside Tom Cruise , or the rollercoaster with Lindsay Lohan . In truth, Oprah has had some dud interviews and the host even revealed that she has a code word when things aren't as interesting... RELATED - Tom Cruise Called Paramount Pictures Himself After A 30-Minute Meeting Telling The Studio 'We’re Making Another Top Gun' In the following, we'll review the controversial Tom Cruise interview from 2005. We'll examine what Cruise really thought about the interview and what he told Seth Rogen about it behind closed doors.

Tom Cruise's Couch-Jump On Oprah Went Completely Viral

The moment went absolutely viral and The Ringer described it best, within a couple of minutes, everything went completely south between Oprah and Tom Cruise.

"Within 15 minutes, Cruise had leapt onto Oprah’s couch in a spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm for his personal life. Cruise’s offbeat showboating was memorable in part because of its unusual setting."

It is said that the 2005 moment launched internet blogs and in addition, it showed the dangers of public opinion online, and how it can shape a person in the long run.

RELATED - This Actor Said He Doesn't Respect Tom Cruise On Live TV, Here's Why

Of course, the moment was all about Tom Cruise discussing his love for Katie Holmes, doing so in a very energetic way to say the least. "I just felt that way, and I feel that way about her. I can't even articulate it, to be honest. That feeling, that connection. Just who she is and what she means to me," Cruise stated.

We all know by now, the relationship did not last and the two went their own ways despite the "connection." Both sides kept very quiet about the interview during the years that followed.

However, Seth Rogen revealed that Cruise did in fact have an opinion about what had transpired.

Seth Rogen Revealed That Tom Cruise Stated The Interview Was Purposely Edited

We'll never really know the validity of this, but Rogen would reveal the details in his memoir book Yearbook . The moment in question took place during a five-hour Knocked Up meeting, which included Tom Cruise himself.

Over those couple of hours, Cruise had a lot to say, including the discussion of what went on during that interview. According to Tom, the interview wasn't as bad as it seemed and a lot of it was completely setup that way due to the editing.

“Well, yeah, they're making it seem like I'm losing my mind, there’s a coordinated effort to make it appear that way” Cruise allegedly told Rogen.

"They edited it to make it look so much worse than it was. They do that all the time.”

RELATED - A Rumoured Theory On Why Tom Cruise And Leonardo DiCaprio Never Worked Together

Tom had the same to say following his interview with Matt Lauer, claiming pharmaceutical companies were out to get him, “because my exposure of their fraud has cost them SO much money that they're desperate. They're scrambling and they're doing everything they can to discredit me so I won't hurt sales anymore.”

In terms of his public comments about the Oprah interview, there really hasn't been many...

Tom Cruise Had Said Very Little About The Interview Publicly

In terms of actual words from Tom himself that we know of, there hasn't been many relating to the interview. He did make a joke about it , claiming he was in his "year of jumping dangerously," referencing the film, The Year of Living Dangerously.

Tom did touch base on his reputation back in 2008 alongside Pop Sugar . Similar to what he discussed alongside Seth Rogen, Cruise stated that he doesn't stress about it, given that the media spins it however they choose to.

"Listen I, I feel like definitely things have been misunderstood, and there are things I could have done better. But then there's also that world where you go, 'Oh, it's been spun to such an extent that. That's a truth also.' Knowing when and where to communicate, I think that's important. A lot of times I was nervous giving interviews. Or I wasn't sometimes as comfortable about things. And I realized that it's okay. There's stuff you have to just let go. I just have to do the best I can."

Clearly, all of that is in the past nowadays, as Cruise continues to enjoy serious success, especially from a career standpoint.

NEXT - Tom Cruise Couldn't Stop Laughing At The Gruesome Footage Of His Ankle Breaking During A Stunt In Mission Impossible

The Great Read

My Impossible Mission to Find Tom Cruise

The action star has gone to great lengths to avoid the press for more than a decade. But maybe our writer could track him down anyway?

Credit... Illustration by Kelsey Dake

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By Caity Weaver

Published July 17, 2023 Updated July 31, 2023

In an interview with Playboy in 2012, Tom Cruise described Katie Holmes as “an extraordinary person” with a “wonderful” clothing line, and someone for whom he was fond of “doing things like creating romantic dinners” — behavior that, he confided, “she enjoys.” It would prove to be his last major interview with a reporter to date. Despite what may be recalled through the penumbra of memory, this sudden silence was not directly preceded by either of Cruise’s infamous appearances on television: not by his NBC’s “Today” show interview (in which he labeled host Matt Lauer both “glib” and “Matt — MattMattMattMatt”), nor even by his appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” (in which he reverse-catapulted himself onto Winfrey’s fawn-colored couch multiple times in a demonstration of his enthusiasm for Holmes). Those incidents occurred seven years earlier, in 2005; Cruise emerged from the hex of public bewilderment unscathed. In fact, Cruise gave no indication that the interview, pegged to the musical-comedy bomb “Rock of Ages,” was intended to serve as a farewell address to journalists. At the time he sat for it, another life milestone was hurtling toward him: The month after the article was published, Holmes filed for divorce.

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In the decade since, the amount of verified information we have gleaned about Cruise’s real life could fit on a single flashcard, though it’s unclear why anyone would need to memorize it, since the details mainly consist of anecdotal trifles shared by other celebrities in interviews of their own: From James Corden, we know Cruise once asked to land a helicopter in James Corden’s yard . From Brooke Shields, we know Brooke Shields no longer receives the (by all accounts delectable) white chocolate coconut Bundt cake that Cruise famously sends to many beloved stars each holiday season. From Kyra Sedgwick, we know that there was a panic button under a fireplace mantle in one of Cruise’s homes . (She pressed it out of curiosity, summoning the police.) From Matt Damon, we know that during production of the fourth “Mission: Impossible” movie, Cruise had “a safety guy” replaced because he deemed a proposed stunt (in which Cruise scampers over the Burj Khalifa) “too dangerous.” Tom Cruise, Kate Hudson informs us, loves skydiving.

These facts sketch a portrait of a daredevil with a finite budget for cakes, but hardly a recluse. Cruise’s spurning of interviews makes him unique among his cohort — A-list, pathologically charismatic, wrest-butts-into-seats-type movie stars — whose success, it has long been assumed, derives from their ability to appear likable to mortals. They demonstrate this skill, traditionally, by exhibiting their personality in interviews. Every time Cruise turns down an interview request (through his representative, Cruise declined to be interviewed for this article), he makes a bet that just his being Tom Cruise, offering no further details about what that might entail, is enticement enough for people to watch his movies. Lately, more often than not, he has been right.

To see this clearly, perhaps it’s helpful to contrast Cruise’s career with that of Brad Pitt, his co-star in “Interview With the Vampire” (1994) and fellow member of a declining species: Hollywood leading men. Pitt has continued appearing in the kind of films (thrillers, comedies, romances, psychodramas, historical epics, etc.) that he and Cruise starred in throughout the 1990s and 2000s. In the past decade, audiences could find Pitt endeavoring to disappear into roles ranging from abolitionist to astronaut. In the same period, Cruise has starred solely in action films, which have depicted him fighting aliens, terrorists, fellow spies, a mummy and sundry other enemies of the United States. Rather than vanishing into roles, Cruise remakes them in his image. So fully has he melded his offscreen persona with that of the skydiving, cliff-jumping, motorcycle-parachuting pilots he portrays, these characters become mere receptacles of Tom Cruiseness. Cruise’s films tend to perform better than Pitt’s at the box office; his most recent endeavor, “Top Gun: Maverick,” outearned Pitt’s latest by about $1.4 billion. This summer, Tom Cruise will run, drive and jump at top speeds in “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” and Brad Pitt will star in nothing.

Cruise still takes part in promotional junkets and convivial late-night-talk-show chats, but his refusal to participate in the sort of in-depth journalistic interviews that (in theory, anyway) reveal some aspect of his true self has coincided, somewhat paradoxically, with an incredible surge in his commitment to infusing cinematic fantasies with reality. For unknown reasons it could be interesting to explore in an interview, reality has become very important to Cruise, who reveres it as a force more powerful than magic. It is vital to Cruise that the audience of “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” have the opportunity to witness not a C.G.I. production of a feat, or even a seasoned stunt performer executing a dangerous act, but real footage of him, Tom Cruise, the 61-year-old father of three from Syracuse, N.Y., riding a motorcycle off a cliff.

This fetish for reality has become a keystone of Cruise’s persona, to the extent that many of his public appearances now take place in flying vehicles. Rather than accept an MTV Movie & TV Award in person in May, Cruise filmed his acceptance speech from the cockpit of a fighter aircraft as he piloted it through clouds, politely shouting, “I love entertaining you!” over the engine’s roar. Delivering “a special message from the set of @MissionImpossible” to his followers on Instagram, Cruise screamed while dangling backward off the side of an aircraft, “It truly is the honor of a lifetime!”

But reality does not exist only in movies. What is missing from Cruise’s fervid documentation of ultrarisky, inconceivably expensive, meticulously planned real-life events are any details about the parts of his real life that do not involve, for example, filming stunts for “Mission: Impossible” movies. My own mission, then, was simple: I was to travel to the ends of the Earth to see if it was possible to locate the terrestrial Cruise, out of context — to catch a glimpse, to politely shout one question at him, or at least to ascertain one new piece of intelligence about his current existence — in order to reintegrate him into our shared reality.

Having lately made an effort to scrutinize any article that cast Tom Cruise as its subject, one of the few things that I can say for certain he has done since 2021, besides film two “Mission: Impossible” movies, is order chicken tikka masala from a restaurant in Birmingham, England, and then “as soon as he had finished” (per a tweet from the restaurant ) order the exact same chicken tikka masala “all over again.”

These days, Tom Cruise is hardly ever photographed in any situation other than shooting and promoting his films. (He was filming in Birmingham.) The paucity of paparazzi photos of the apparently chicken-loving actor can be at least partly attributed to his spending much time removed from America’s twin celebrity-entertainment control rooms: New York (where his ex-wife, Holmes, lives with their daughter) and Los Angeles (where, in 2015 and 2016, he reportedly sold multiple homes for a combined total just over $50 million). Years of speculation that Cruise lives or was planning to live in a penthouse apartment a five-minute walk from the “spiritual headquarters” of the Church of Scientology, of which he is a big fan, in Clearwater, Fla., appear never to have been realized, apart from an unsourced assertion published in The Hollywood Reporter in 2018, which mentioned that the audition process for co-stars in Cruise’s “Top Gun: Maverick” “involved flying down to Cruise’s home in Clearwater. ”

To learn more about the possible activities of Tom Cruise, I turned to the person who, after Cruise himself, his family, his friends, his employees, his co-workers and anyone who has ever met — or, at least, interacted with — him, knows him best: a Brazilian woman who is quite possibly his most dedicated fan in the world. She spoke to me on two conditions: first, that I grant her anonymity; second, that I not identify by name, or characterize too specifically, the publicly available online repository of Cruise-related information she has maintained for over 20 years. Her concerns are both practical and legal: Practically, she isn’t sure if the operation, which may or may not play host to more than 132,000 images of Cruise, could withstand a large influx of traffic; legally, she did not wish to invite the scrutiny and possible copyright claims the attention might draw.

She started the operation when she was 18. Today she is in her early 40s and works as a librarian. More than two decades into the endeavor, a nostalgic melancholy permeates the fan’s reflections. Ten years ago, she said, she was often the first to widely disseminate the latest images of Cruise. Now, because of the superabundance of photo-sharing social media accounts, she must settle for merely having the most complete repository. New additions trickle in sporadically. She’s partial to the theory that paparazzi rarely capture photographs of Cruise in part because he is a real-life “master of disguise,” whom people fail to recognize on the street. Despite years of remote observation, of scrutinizing nearly every single image captured of the man, even she could not say definitively where Cruise lives. She did observe, however, that he appears to spend “most of the time” in Britain.

In fact, there is a strange rumor that Cruise bought a home in a tiny town called Biggin Hill, on the farthest fringes of London — the site of a small private airport that he has been known to use when filming in the region. The legend appears to trace back to an article published in the British tabloid The Sun in July 2021 about the actor’s 59th-birthday celebration. An anonymous source declared that Cruise had “only recently moved to” a house in Biggin Hill (average home price: £590,000), “which feels like it’s practically in the countryside.” The claim would accrue scant new details as it was repeated in British papers numerous times over the following year, apart from one: that Cruise’s residence “is set in 140 acres of stunning rural parkland,” inside a posh gated community near the airport.

Cruise, who has filmed parts of the three most recent installments of “Mission: Impossible” in Britain, has never publicly commented on the rumors. He did, however, confirm that he spends “a lot of time in Britain” in an exceedingly rare interview that appeared, inexplicably, in the September 2022 issue of Derbyshire Life magazine. “I guess I am an Anglophile,” Cruise told Derbyshire Life. “I love being in Britain because everyone is pleasant and will give you a nod or say hello without crowding you too much.” Elsewhere in the interview, Cruise expressed additional enthusiasm for auxiliary British topics, including politeness (“Being friendly doesn’t cost a bean, and I enjoy it”) and Derbyshire, which is, for the record, actually a considerable distance from Biggin Hill (“Wow! Derbyshire — what a fantastic place!”).

To determine if anyone who did not work in the British newspaper or chicken-tikka-masala industries had ever encountered Cruise on English soil, I sifted through Facebook posts, typing any permutation of “saw Tom Cruise” I could think of into the search bars of neighborhood groups for all of the Hobbit-ily named localities surrounding Biggin Hill (“Orpington”; “West Wickham”). I joined groups like “Westerham and Biggin Hill News friends Community fun views gossip” and pored over hundreds of responses to posts like “Think I just saw Tom Cruise driving down jail lane that’s impossible.” The flashes of Cruise that winked from the replies were tantalizing — “I’ve seen him blue Ferrari…jail lane…”; “Lives up Cudham drives blue Ferrari” — but there was no way to tell who was reporting accurate details about the comings and goings of Tom Cruise, who was mistaken and who was merely lying for fun. The only way to find out was to do what Cruise himself would do: grab onto the nearest plane and go, for real.

Next to the Biggin Hill Airport, there is a pocket-size hotel built to serve the crews and engineers of the private planes that fly in and out. The hotel, its website boasts, offers “great views towards London” — something just about any place on Earth could offer with the right window arrangement, assuming it was not already in London. The description of the property’s sleek teal-and-toffee-colored restaurant turned out to be even more specifically accurate: The view of the runway at Biggin Hill Airport was without parallel. At the bar, I pulled up a leather stool and ordered (not in these exact words) the worst Shirley Temple of my life, which cost $11. My fellow patrons had long since familiarized themselves with the contours of the small dinner menu; they had been stranded at Biggin Hill for some time, because the private jet of the billionaire for whom they were working had received — you hate to hear this — an estimated $10 million worth of hail damage. I asked a maintenance technician if he thought Tom Cruise really did have a house in Biggin Hill. He replied with unflinching confidence: “I know he does.”

In the same venue, a man so young he might have been a teenager, who at one time worked inside the airport, revealed to me that Cruise had a parking spot there, though it was unclear if he meant for a car or a helicopter. Most of the good people of Biggin Hill, when grilled about Cruise’s living arrangements, seemed genuinely to have no idea what I was talking about. These were the two camps into which, without fail, every respondent fell: Either they had never so much as heard the rumor that Cruise walked among them, or they were 100 percent certain that he did.

Upon reaching Keston Park, the only gated community in the area matching The Sun’s description, I discovered two things: first, that there appeared to be an illegally locked gate obstructing public access to the footpath that cuts through the neighborhood — whether the gate is impenetrable is a matter of ongoing dispute among the Bromley borough council, myself and many other aspiring path-takers who have submitted complaints about the locked gate to the borough website — and, second, that the biggest movie star in the world did not live there. That was evident through holes that carpenter bees had bored into the barbed-wire-topped fences protecting Keston Park from the wider world. The stately houses faced one another too directly. Their trees could drop acorns into another’s gardens. There was nowhere to conveniently land a helicopter.

Oh, well. These were Keston Park’s problems — not mine and probably not Tom Cruise’s. Tom Cruise, as he and I both now knew, was most likely secretly living at another estate I had turned up in my research — one that was even closer to the airport.

The distance between any two points within the general environs of Biggin Hill is insignificant by car, which is probably why I was unable to persuade any taxi driver to transport me between them. It is less insignificant by foot, and even longer, though much more scenic, if one attempts to traverse it by way of the aforementioned footpaths. These meandering trails tended to be spectacularly beautiful, bursting with a vernal lushness that was nearly pornographic. House-high frozen fountains of eensy white hawthorn blossoms shaded dusty walkways. Wild roses as pink as Country Time lemonade exploded from leafy hedges. Fragile sapphire speedwells, fat purple clover tops and buttercups strewn like gold confetti — these were merely the things it was impossible not to step on. The fluorescent green of the meadows recalled the grasses of another royal province — Super Mario’s Mushroom Kingdom. Poppies and toadflax sprang out obscenely from stone walls. Tom Cruise would be crazy not to live here , I thought as I stroked the soft, sun-warmed mane of a little white donkey. Let’s all live here .

Except, upon my arrival at the end of an idyllic woodland stroll, I discovered that Cruise did not live there either. There was, in the front yard of this residence, a garden gnome lugging buckets on a yoke, which didn’t seem like Cruise’s style, and the gnome was overturned, lying on its side — definitely not his style. I righted the gnome and ambled on, in search of another public footpath that would, I hoped, lead me to where Cruise actually lived. Instead, I accidentally wandered into what (I learned through being yelled this information) was not a public right of way but a field privately owned by a woman who berated me until I ran into traffic on a nearby road.

That night, with half my allotted exploratory mission time used up, I lay awake in the hotel built for the flight attendants of billionaires’ jets, miserable and panicked at my failure to do anything but incur thousands of dollars in expenses for airfare and one Shirley Temple. Surely this wasn’t all for naught; surely some meaning could possibly be derived from an interaction between a movie star and a magazine journalist — even a brief one, even one in which the movie star had already said (through his publicist) he did not wish to participate, even one in which the star was not present, since some understanding of some dimension of his life could doubtless be gleaned through a study of his surroundings. But what if Cruise has been so successful in removing himself from our world that I would never find any trace of him? What if Cruise had evanesced into a high-octane mist of pure entertainment? Did I have time to just go to every single house in England and check if Cruise was home? How big was this nation? Why was the sun rising now, in the middle of the night? What time was it?! Had I accidentally not gone to sleep all night?

I had one more idea.

On my first day in town, I had stopped at a pub for lunch. I was told that there was a funeral going on and that there was an hour wait for food, but that if I ordered something simple like a sandwich, the wait would be less, so I ordered a sandwich, which actually took 90 minutes to arrive and was so, no offense, disgusting-tasting that I turned around and asked a middle-aged man sitting at the picnic table behind mine if he would like half a sandwich (no) and if it always took so long to receive a sandwich at this pub (unclear) and if it was true that Tom Cruise really lived nearby. “He’s here,” the man said to me.

“Do you know?” I asked. “Or are you guessing?”

“He’s definitely around here, that’s for sure,” he said. “I know where he is.”

At first, with the cagey pride of one who knows the favored hovering spot of an actual ghost, who acts as self-appointed doorman of the thin place between worlds, the man made a show of not telling me where. But then, on his way out, he materialized at my elbow and proffered three “clues” (his word).

“It’s within two miles of the airport,” he said. “Look for the biggest house. And I mean — ” his voice dropped to a whisper, “ — the biggest .”

“It’s a very famous house,” he said. “The anti-establishment of slavery started there.”

I was aware of this property from my earlier research. It was a colossal butter-colored manor once owned by a prime minister, William Pitt the Younger. I had eliminated it from contention as a possible Cruise residence because it was sold in 2018 (£8.5 million) to a used-car magnate who, at least judging by an article from 2020 that I read in Car Dealer magazine, appeared to be quite comfortably ensconced in it. But it was only a few miles away. On foot, the journey could be completed in just over an hour.

How, exactly, I ended up on the edge of that woman’s privately owned field again, I have no idea. The expedition to that point had seemed to take me through brand-new areas. All of a sudden, I noticed that the path had dissipated into dense forest. This is just like what happened yesterday, when I trespassed in that woman’s field, I thought, then looked up and spotted her house in the distance.

I panicked. I frightened a badger — likewise, babe! — and bolted through the forest as quickly as I could in a new, randomly chosen direction. This deposited me into a vast, previously unencountered field. On all previous paths, vigorously growing cow parsley had stood on slender stems, about shin high. Here, upright hordes of it grazed my shoulders, while fallen comrades entangled my ankles. Needles of true panic pricked my nape under sweaty hair. Statistically speaking, I assured myself, it was unlikely I would be trapped in this field so long that I would die there.

Although — wouldn’t it serve that woman right if I did die in this field, so close to her own, where I was not allowed? “That would teach her a lesson,” I said into the audio recorder I had brought in case I encountered Tom Cruise. Have to “find some way to notify her,” I explained. (Of my death.) Hopefully she would see my picture in a — newspaper! That would be another good thing about dying out here, I told the recorder. It would “serve” the editor who recklessly assigned me this article — who had irresponsibly approved my travel budget — “right.” It would probably ruin his life, or at least his work life. God, would he be fired? Certainly, at the very least, he would get in trouble. You should never have sent her to a small English town . Would our boss tell him not to blame himself? Hopefully not — I am dead because of him! I didn’t want to die, of course — but if it did happen, at least I would die doing what I loved: making people feel bad and be in trouble deservedly. I had yet to clearly develop a mental image of my widowed husband’s second wife when I realized that I had stumbled, midfield, upon a dirt path leading into a neighborhood. I ran down it — in, I was shocked to discover, the exact direction of the used-car dealer’s palatial estate.

The public footpath alongside the property — which, if a man drinking outside a pub at 2 p.m. is to be believed, is inhabited by Tom Cruise — looked like the aisle down which a fairy princess would glide at her wedding. Actually, no, even nicer: It was like the flower-strewn tunnel of light she would pass through following her death (from being viciously yelled at for walking in a private field BY ACCIDENT) on her journey to eternity. It wound beneath protective arches of graceful branches trailing heaps of white and pink blossoms. A gentle, constant wind rippled the flowers just enough to allow dappled sunlight to illuminate a trail through their lovely shade. So vast were the grounds, so lush the foliage, that the home itself was not visible from any vantage point. I listened for the distant throaty cry of a blue Ferrari, but heard only bird song.

The recorded owner of the estate made no response to my later attempts to contact him, to ask if, perchance, Tom Cruise (possibly in elaborate disguise) could be living in his house. Even if Cruise has no connection to the residence, this absolute lack of response serves to further obscure his existence. Not only is it impossible to determine where he lives — it isn’t even possible to determine where he does not live. The distance between Cruise and the average human remains unshrinkable. At a time when social media renders movie stars ever-present in the public field of vision — accessible to some extent through whatever scrupulously vetted personal information they share, but also broadly trackable via webs of celebrity-watching accounts that widely disseminate photos and rumors — Cruise has distinguished himself by becoming a comet. When, between protracted absences, his inscrutable orbit brings him back into Earth’s visible realm, he briefly commands the simultaneous attention of all its peoples: “Thank you to the people of Abu Dhabi,” read a June post on his Instagram account, alongside a photo of him greeting a crowd at a “Dead Reckoning Part One” premiere. (Also appreciated and acknowledged by their servant-sovereign for their attendance at other “Dead Reckoning Part One” premieres: “the people” of Rome; “everyone” in Seoul.)

At the conclusion of this promotional cycle, after Cruise has thanked everyone for allowing him to create world-class summer cinema, he will almost certainly disappear, not to be heard from again until next year, at which point his re-emergence will proclaim the arrival of “Dead Reckoning Part Two.” This vanishing, while perhaps rooted in avoidance of a press corps that asks questions he doesn’t want to answer, is massaged into something like a sacrificial duty to audiences. In disappearing the moment his work is through — always, like Santa Claus, with the promise of return — Cruise retains the mystique that so many Hollywood stars have lost this century. He goes away so that audiences may experience the thrill of his reappearance, and delight in the promise of movie magic he heralds.

Of course, it is possible that Tom Cruise does not even know that the gargantuan house in the quiet English village exists. But if we assume, perhaps foolishly, that he does live there, I did ascertain one new detail about his reality: He was in the process of having the long private driveway that weaves through the woods and stretches to the unseen manor beyond redone. It looks awesome.

Caity Weaver is a staff writer for the magazine. She last wrote about going on a package trip for youngish people.

An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the plane from which Tom Cruise accepted an MTV Movie & TV Award. It was a fighter aircraft, not a fighter jet.

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Why Tom Cruise Accused Oprah Winfrey Of Setting Him Up

Tom Cruise is no stranger to controversy . One of the actor's most memorable moments came during a wild 2005 interview with Oprah Winfrey . At the time, Cruise had just started dating Katie Holmes, and the two had gone public with their romance. While talking about his new relationship, the actor became giddy, smiling from ear to ear, pumping his fist, jumping on Oprah's couch, and playing to the audience. "You're gone ... The boy is gone!" Oprah could be heard saying during the viral moment. The interview became one of the most talked-about moments in pop culture, but looking back, Cruise was reportedly unhappy about how he was portrayed and even accused Oprah's show of setting him up with heavy editing.

During the interview, Cruise looked like a man possessed by love, gushing over Holmes and even dragging her up on stage for some public canoodling. "I'm in love. I'm in love and it's one of these things where you want to be cool, like, 'Yeah I like her' ... that's not how I feel," Cruise told Oprah at the time (via Us Weekly ). Following the interview, Cruise's behavior was analyzed and turned into a running joke on the internet.

Since that time, it's been alleged that Cruise claimed the interview was edited to make him appear unhinged, and none other than Hollywood comedian Seth Rogen was said to get the scoop about Cruise's true feelings regarding his infamous Oprah appearance.

Tom Cruise allegedly told Seth Rogen he was being set up

When actor Seth Rogen released his first book titled "Yearbook," the comedian opened up about his many of his encounters with people in Hollywood, and one of those interactions was with Tom Cruise. Rogen revealed that he and Cruise had a long meeting with Judd Apatow in 2006 (just one year after the viral Oprah interview), where they met up at Cruise's home to discuss the possibility of the actor taking a comedic role.

"It was all totally normal ... until ... it wasn't," Rogen wrote in the book, adding that four hours after arriving for the meeting the conversation turned towards Cruise's highly talked-about interview, where he jumped on the couch and excitedly opened up about his love for Katie Holmes (via Insider ). Cruise reportedly told Rogen that the "Oprah Winfrey Show" had edited the interview to shed a negative light on him. "Well, yeah, they're making it seem like I'm losing my mind," Cruise reportedly told Rogen. "There's a coordinated effort to make it appear that way."

When Rogen pressed the "Mission: Impossible" star to elaborate on who would want to make him seem crazy, he allegedly claimed that the pharmaceutical industry was behind it due to the actor's exposure of their fraud. "They're scrambling and they're doing everything they can to discredit me so I won't hurt sales anymore," Cruise said, per Rogen.

Tom and Oprah revisited the interview in 2008

Despite the backlash about his wild Oprah Winfrey interview, Tom Cruise later revealed that he wasn't ashamed of the moment. In 2008 after Cruise and Katie Holmes were married and had welcomed a daughter together, Suri, the couple invited Oprah into their home for another interview. During that time, the actor revealed that the energy behind their previous interview was genuine. "That was a moment, and it was real, and I don't know if I would [do it differently]. I really don't," Cruise said during the sitdown, per the New York Post .

However, in 2012, Cruise and Holmes divorced. In 2020, Holmes opened up about being a single mother raising her daughter in New York City following her split from the A-lister, calling the early time "intense" (via InStyle ). "It was a lot of attention, and I had a little child on top of it. We had some funny moments out and about in public. So many people I didn't know became my friends and helped us out, and that's what I love about the city," she added.

Both Cruise and Holmes have moved on from the wacky 2005 interview, continuing to build their careers. However, fans will likely never forget the moment, which will be cemented in pop culture history for years to come.

Peter Overton Reacted To His Controversial Interview With Tom Cruise Years Later

Tom Cruise's interview with Peter Overton for 60 Minutes became incredibly tense when Overton asked about Cruise's ex, Nicole Kidman. Cruise got testy and warned Overton that he was crossing the line.
Another notable interview moment was when Cruise was squirted in the face with a water gun. He confronted the person and called them rude and a jerk.
On Oprah's show, Cruise went off script and professed his love for his new girlfriend. This spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm became a memorable and bizarre moment on the show.

In an era where the movie star is slowly fading, one name continues to thrive: Tom Cruise . The dynamic actor has been a force in the business since the 1980s, and at this point, he is one of the greatest and most financially secure actors to grace the big screen. Though there's nothing left to achieve, Cruise is hardly finished.

As great as his career has been, it's not been free of infamous moments. In fact, Cruise has had some notable interviews that have made the rounds through the years.

Let's take a stroll down memory lane, and look back on an interview that had Tom Cruise fuming! It just happened to be one of a few awkward encounters during that time.

Peter Overton Made Tom Cruise Furious During An Interview For 60 Minutes

In an interview with Peter Overton for 60 Minutes , Tom Cruise was fielding questions, but things shifted when he was asked about his ex, Nicle Kidman.

When asked if Kidman was the love of his life, Cruise got testy.

"What do you mean, Peter? Listen we raise children, you know … I mean, how do you answer that question?" Cruise replied.

When Overton persisted, Cruise put him in check.

"You’re stepping over the line now. You’re stepping over the line, and you know you are,” the movie star said.

From there, things were incredibly tense.

Overton did not back down, however, and neither did Cruise.

"Peter. Peter. You want to know. Take responsibility for what you want to know. I’m just telling you right now, OK, just put your manners back in," Cruise stated.

Eventually, things simmered down, and Overton apologized. The clip made its rounds, and continues to do so.

Years later, Overton reflected on the interview when speaking with Nine .

"[Here's] Tom, staring me down. That was a hell of an interview, I'll never forget it," he said.

"I held my own and I was happy about that. I didn't change, that's who I am. I thought they were fair questions," he continued.

Fortunately, Overton does not hold a grudge against Cruise.

"You know what, I hold no ill will towards Tom Cruise ... it was just one of those interviews that perhaps didn't pan out as everyone thought it would," Overton added.

The interview has lived on for years, and it's hardly the only Cruise interview that had people buzzing.

Howard Stern Regrets Not Apologizing In Time To His Now-Deceased Guest For Their Forgettable Interview

Tom cruise also got angry after being squirted with water.

Tom Cruise's infamous water gun moment in 2005 made for a viral moment long before viral was a thing.

While on the red carpet, Cruise was squirted in the face with a water gun. At first, he seemed fine, but things quickly took a turn for the worst.

"Why would you do that?" Cruise asked.

The star then got closer, and pressed further.

"What’s so funny about this? It is ridiculous. Don’t run away. That’s incredibly rude. I’m here giving you an interview and you do something nasty… it’s incredibly rude. You know what, you’re a jerk. You’re a jerk."

Much like his interview with Overton, this clip was making its rounds, and every now and again, it's unearthed by people and dissected all over again.

Swinging in a more positive direction, another Cruise interview took the world by storm, only this time, the star was in an extremely good mood. If you're old enough, then you already know where this is going.

Fans Were Furious After Ryan O'Neal Blamed Farah Fawcett's Death On His Family During An Interview With Piers Morgan

His hilarious oprah interview lives on in infamy.

In 2005, while promoting War of the Worlds , Tom Cruise made an appearance on Oprah's show. Little did he know that this would be yet another interview that shook the pop culture sphere.

"Instead of sticking to the promotional script, though, the compact action star gushed about his new girlfriend, actress Katie Holmes. “You’re gone,” Oprah said, searching for words to describe Cruise’s over-the-top infatuation.

Within 15 minutes, Cruise had leaped onto Oprah’s couch in a spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm for his personal life. Cruise’s offbeat showboating was memorable in part because of its unusual setting; The Oprah Winfrey Show was where celebrities traipsed to shine up their reputations and get a warm embrace from a sympathetic fellow star," The Ringer penned about the incident.

It was hilarious, bizarre, and much like the incidents we previously mentioned, it had people talking. Cruise was a walking bad press magnet, but it did little to derail his career, which continues to thrive to this day.

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Fortunately, with all these examples available, interviewers should have a good idea of what to stay away from when speaking with Tom Cruise.

Peter Overton Reacted To His Controversial Interview With Tom Cruise Years Later

Oprah Winfrey on past weight shaming and starving herself for months

Oprah Winfrey described the pain of headlines including "Oprah: Fatter Than Ever" and "Bumpy, Lumpy, And Downright Dumpy" and called the recent development of weight-loss medication "a relief".

Arts and entertainment reporter @BethanyMinelle

Tuesday 19 March 2024 12:46, UK

Oprah Winfrey arrives at the 81st Golden Globe Awards on Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Oprah Winfrey says she "starved herself" for months before wheeling out a "wagon of animal fat" to represent all the weight she'd lost on an episode of her talk show back in 1988, all in a bid to combat the "shame" she felt around her weight.

The 70-year-old star - who has been ranked among the most influential women in the world - described the criticism she had received over her weight during her career, saying that for more than two decades "making fun of my weight was a national sport".

She spoke emotionally about the myths surrounding obesity and the growing trend of weight management medication in a TV special titled An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame And The Weight Loss Revolution on the American network ABC.

She also said she had quit the board of WeightWatchers ahead of the show because she did not want a "perceived conflict of interest," and had donated "all of my shares at WeightWatchers to the Smithsonian Museum Of African American History And Culture".

'Medicine providing hope for people like me'

Opening the TV special, Winfrey said: "In my lifetime, I never dreamed that we would be talking about medicine that is providing hope for people like me who have struggled for years with being overweight or obesity.

"So, I come to this conversation in the hope that we can start releasing the stigma and the shame and the judgment to stop shaming other people for being overweight or how they choose to lose or not lose weight.

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Tom Cruise - Oprah Winfrey Show

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Oprah Winfrey: Broadcaster says mocking her weight was 'national sport'

Published 7 days ago

Oprah Winfrey has spoken about the "shame" she experienced after being "ridiculed" about her weight.

Speaking about her weight and obesity in a TV special, the US broadcaster and actress said she would "never forget" called "bumpy, lumpy and down right dumpy" on a magazine cover.

Winfrey, 70, has lost a significant amount of weight through medication, and praised weight-loss drugs.

She has not specified which one she uses, however.

Are weight-loss injections the answer to obesity?

An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution, broadcast in the US on ABC, showed an emotional Winfrey talking about the pain of being humiliated by late-night talk show hosts and tabloids for 25 years.

She read out a number of previous headlines about her, including "Oprah: Fatter than ever" and "Oprah warned 'diet or die'."

Winfrey praised weight loss drugs saying "In my lifetime, I never dreamed that we would be talking about medicine that is providing hope for people like me, who have struggled for years with being overweight or obesity."

She became emotional when describing the medication as giving people a "sense of hope" as you "no longer blame yourself".

Winfrey added she hoped she can "start releasing the stigma and the shame and the judgment to stop shaming other people for being overweight, or how they choose to lose or not lose weight".

The media mogul said she made the decision to stop serving on the board of WeightWatchers because she did not want a "perceived conflict of interest" for the ABC TV special.

Oprah Winfrey to leave board of WeightWatchers

She also donated her shares in WeightWatchers to the the Smithsonian Museum Of African American History And Culture.

Winfrey also spoke openly about her attempts to lose weight and how in 1988 she starved herself "for nearly five months", then displayed a lump of animal fat equivalent to the weight she had lost on her talk show.

Winfrey ended the broadcast by saying "let's stop the shaming and blaming, there is no place for it".

The presenter hosted The Oprah Winfrey Show which aired from 1986-2011, was one of the most successful shows in US TV history.

Her 1993 interview with Michael Jackson saw 90 million viewers tune in, while it was her television couch that Tom Cruise jumped on in 2005 to proclaim his love for Katie Holmes.

Winfrey was invited to the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. and her deeply personal 2021 interview with them , a two-hour special on CBS, generated global headlines.

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Exclusive from His Telluride Home: The Tom Cruise Interview

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Exclusive from His Telluride Home: The Tom Cruise Interview
The Exclusive Interview. For the first time since Tom Cruise's May 23, 2005, appearance on The Oprah Show, Oprah and Tom are sitting down together for an interview—this time on Tom's sofa in his Telluride, Colorado, home. "I was a little nervous coming up this morning, I have to admit, because you and I have not sat down for a real ...
The Couch Jump That Rocked Hollywood
The Couch Jump That Rocked Hollywood. Tom Cruise's 2005 appearance on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' was an iconic episode of television—and a turning point for how we discuss and understand ...
Tom Cruise Jumped On Oprah's Couch And Lost His Mind 11 ...
In the words of Oprah, "He's gone. He's gone. The boy is gone." Eleven years ago today, actor Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah Winfrey's couch like a trampoline when he appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Cruise declared his love for then girlfriend (and future ex-wife) Katie Holmes and hopped up on the furniture before Oprah said, "He's gone.
#2: Oprah Reflects on Tom Cruise's Couch Jumping
Many of the world's biggest stars opened up to Oprah about being in love over the years, but none as enthusiastically as Tom Cruise. His display of affection...
Tom Cruise Jumping On Oprah's Couch 16 Years Ago Hasn't Aged Well
Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah's couch 16 years ago and it hasn't aged well. In May 2005, Tom Cruise momentarily lost the run of himself and trampled all over Oprah's couch as he proclaimed his love for Katie Holmes during an interview. After months of speculation that the pair were together, Tom finally spoke of their relationship on Oprah's chat ...
Exclusive from His Telluride Home: The Tom Cruise Interview
A Kindness Social Experiment in New York and Los Angeles. Boy Says He Had an Encounter With a Wizard During Near-Death Experience. A Woman On Her Near-Death Experience: "I Saw This White Light". The Teen Manipulated Into Killing Her Stepmom By Her Dad. Oprah goes one-on-one with Tom from his home in Telluride, Colorado.
Let's revisit the Tom Cruise/Oprah's couch incident
When Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah's couch and declared his love for Katie Holmes, it was the daytime TV moment for a DVR, GIF-ready age. But, as Amy Nicholson reports for L.A. Weekly , the moment ...
Tom Cruise Jumps On Oprah Winfrey's Couch
On May 23, 2005, Tom Cruise showed his incredible cat-like agility by jumping on Oprah Winfrey's couch. Ten years later, we celebrate this moment that went down in pop culture history. Oprah Winfrey.
He Didn't Jump on the Couch!
Summary Transcript. On May 23 rd, 2005, Tom Cruise was on Oprah to talk about his new movie. But Oprah wanted to hear about his new relationship, with Katie Holmes. The freeze frame from that interview, of Cruise apparently jumping up and down on Oprah's couch, is now enshrined in pop culture history, and has tarnished the mega-star's ...
"Exclusive From His Telluride Home: The Tom Cruise Interview"
Oprah Winfrey interviews Tom Cruise at his home in Telluride. In this clip he discusses his daughter Suri and his family's reaction to her. Solutions . Video marketing. Power your marketing strategy with perfectly branded videos to drive better ROI. Event marketing. Host virtual events and webinars to increase engagement and generate leads. ...
I Rewatched Oprah's 2005 Tom Cruise Interview
I've written recently about my fascination with Tom Cruise and hosted a discussion thread for subscribers, so when Oprah's latest interview dominated the media landscape in the days after (and continues to do so) my mind wandered to Oprah's interview with Cruise on June 23, 2005.
Behind the Scenes of Oprah's Surprise Spectacular
Go inside preparations for Oprah's surprise, star-studded farewell spectacular at the United Center. ... Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes rehearse their lines for Oprah's big day. Photo: George Burns/Harpo Studios. Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise. ... Will Smith pretends to interview stage manager Dean during rehearsal. Photo: George Burns/Harpo Studios.
Oprah Winfrey Interviews Tom Cruise 1988
If you have a full/higher quality version of this video feel free to send it to [email protected] and it will be uploaded in place of this video.
oprah tom cruise
About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright ...
Let's Take a Moment to Remember Tom Cruise's Couch Incident
Oprah Winfrey 's pink knit separates. That oddly flower-like couch. And of course, Tom Cruise, dressed all in black as though he were a ninja sent on assignment straight from the Church of ...
Remember When...Tom Cruise Jumped on Oprah's Couch?
Tom appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show presumably to promote a movie, but mostly to tell the world he was in love with Katie, which involved a lot of bowing on one knee (five times), grabbing ...
Tom Cruise Revealed He Was Intentionally Setup During His Wild Oprah
Published Jul 21, 2022. Behind closed doors, Tom Cruise told Seth Rogen how he really felt about the strange Oprah Winfrey interview. via YouTube. Now if only every Oprah Winfrey interview can be like her time alongside Tom Cruise, or the rollercoaster with Lindsay Lohan. In truth, Oprah has had some dud interviews and the host even revealed ...
My Impossible Mission to Find Tom Cruise
475. By Caity Weaver. Published July 17, 2023 Updated July 31, 2023. In an interview with Playboy in 2012, Tom Cruise described Katie Holmes as "an extraordinary person" with a "wonderful ...
Why Tom Cruise Accused Oprah Winfrey Of Setting Him Up
Despite the backlash about his wild Oprah Winfrey interview, Tom Cruise later revealed that he wasn't ashamed of the moment. In 2008 after Cruise and Katie Holmes were married and had welcomed a daughter together, Suri, the couple invited Oprah into their home for another interview. During that time, the actor revealed that the energy behind ...
Peter Overton Reacted To His Controversial Interview With Tom Cruise
In 2005, while promoting War of the Worlds, Tom Cruise made an appearance on Oprah's show.Little did he know that this would be yet another interview that shook the pop culture sphere. "Instead of ...
Oprah Winfrey on past weight shaming and starving herself for months
Some of her most notable interviews include speaking to Michael Jackson in 1993, an interview which was watched by 90 million viewers, and her now infamous chat with Tom Cruise in 2005, when he ...
Watch Oprah Winfrey & Tom Cruise Retell a Funny Story About 'Interview
On Monday, "Extra's" Mario Lopez surprised Oprah with a copy of Tom Cruise's 1994 hit film "Interview with a Vampire."Why? There's a "funny story" behind the...
Tom Cruise
Glamour Paris. 4:16. Tom Cruise pète completement les plombs chez Oprah Winfrey. BuzzVid. 4:16. Tom Cruise saute sur le canapé d'Oprah Winfrey. Vanity Fair France. 1:19. Start The New Year Off Right With an Inspirational Women's Cruise with Oprah Winfrey.
Oprah Winfrey: Broadcaster says mocking her weight was 'national ...
Her 1993 interview with Michael Jackson saw 90 million viewers tune in, while it was her television couch that Tom Cruise jumped on in 2005 to proclaim his love for Katie Holmes.

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