It would obviously be ridiculous to start an article about Tom Cruise with the words “poor Tom Cruise’’ and yet … at 63, poor Tom is single again, having split up with his girlfriend of nine months, the Bond actress Ana de Armas, 37.
Last time I noticed, they were holidaying together on a boat in Menorca and earlier in the summer they went to David Beckham’s 50th birthday party, and to see Oasis at Wembley Stadium. Mostly, though, talk of Cruise’s love life has been overshadowed of late by his apparently earnest desire to become an honorary Brit.
Exhibit A: he could live anywhere in the world, but he mostly lives here, near Hyde Park, which he runs around most days. He’s a fixture in the Royal Box at Wimbledon, smartly turned out, never scowling, never moaning about the downside of fame, just smiling, chatting and posing for photographs.
Cruise in the Royal Box at Wimbledon
KARWAI TANG/GETTY IMAGE
In February last year he lent his star power to a London Air Ambulance fundraiser, posing with Prince William who, like Cruise, is a keen helicopter pilot. “We have a lot in common,” he said on the night. “We love England and we’re both aviators.”
There was much clutching of pearls when he gallantly offered the Princess of Wales his hand to help her up some stairs at a film premiere in 2022, but she took it, so a dukedom is surely in the offing. (And it’s worth noting in passing that it was the premiere of Top Gun: Maverick and William and Kate usually only turn out to support British films, not Hollywood blockbusters.)
Not known for his love of horses, he nevertheless agreed to present an equestrian show during Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations and was invited to tea with her at Windsor as a reward. He was given special permission to land his helicopter on the castle’s lawn and the pair apparently got on so well that he was invited back for lunch. He got extra Honorary Brit points for saying all the right things.
“She’s a woman I greatly admire,” he said of Queen Elizabeth. “She has tremendous dignity and I admire her devotion. What she has accomplished has been historic.” He had another starring role in King Charles’s Coronation Concert.
He was friends with Princess Diana, who took Prince William and Harry to the set of the first Mission Impossible film and Diana turned up for the premiere of Far and Away, his film with Nicole Kidman, his wife at the time. Now, both he and Kidman are single again, with Kidman recently announcing her divorce from the musician Keith Urban.
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Cruise has dated some of the most beautiful women in the world, including Heather Locklear and his Risky Business co-star, Rebecca de Mornay, and he’s been married and divorced three times, always to fellow actors. His first and most brief marriage was to Mimi Rogers, from 1987-1990, and it was Rogers who introduced him to the Church of Scientology, for which he is now the world’s most famous advocate.
Catherine, then the Duchess of Cambridge, with Cruise at the Top Gun: Maverick premiere in 2022
DAN KITWOOD/PA
“I’d never been in love before,” he told Rolling Stone when they were still together. “Since I’ve been with her, it’s opened me up a lot. I think it’s helped me be a better actor. She’s my best friend.”
They divorced in 1990, the same year he married Kidman, with whom he adopted two children. That marriage too ended in divorce, in 2001.
“She knows why and I know why,” he told Vanity Fair that year. “I think that you just move on. And I don’t say that lightly. I don’t say that with anything. Things happen in life and you do everything you can, and in every possible way, and there’s a point at which you just sometimes have to face the brutal reality.”
Five years later he married Katie Holmes, the woman who prompted his infamous scene on Oprah Winfrey’s TV sofa, in which he jumped up and down and proclaimed his love. They had a daughter together, Suri, who is now at university.
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His commitment to Scientology was said to have been linked to the divorce and the reason why he has allegedly had little contact with his daughter since the divorce in 2012. He’s since dated Penélope Cruz, whom he met on the set of Vanilla Sky, and he was linked to his Mission Impossible co-star Hayley Atwell for two years, until 2022.
Then, earlier this year, rumours of his romance with De Armas started to circulate after they had dinner around Valentine’s Day. Since then he is said to have “showered her” with gifts, from books to jewellery.
Alas, it was not to be. A “source close to the pair” has told the US Sun, “Tom and Ana had a good time together but their time as a couple has run its course. They are going to remain good friends but they aren’t dating any more.
“They just realised they weren’t going to go the distance and that they are better off as mates. The spark had gone between them, but they still love each other’s company and they’ve both been really adult about it. She’s already been cast in his next film, so they will continue to work together.”
And if she’s heartbroken, she might reflect that spending nine months of your life being squired around town by Tom Cruise, and showered with gifts, is by no means time wasted. And the sooner her ex is made Lord Cruise of Hyde Park, the better.