‘He chose Scientology over his daughter’: Why did Tom Cruise split from Suri?
‘He chose Scientology over his daughter’: Why did Tom Cruise split from Suri?
Liam KellySat, August 8, 2026 at 5:51 AM UTC
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Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise pictured with their daughter Suri in 2009. The Top Gun actor is now thought to be estranged from both - Europa Press/Getty
Only one of Tom Cruise’s three children seems to want to follow in his footsteps by becoming an actor. Before you scream “nepo baby” in the direction of 20-year-old Suri, there is some irony to this: she appears to be estranged from her father and has recently dropped his surname. Treading the boards in a Shakespeare adaptation at the Edinburgh Fringe this month is Suri Noelle – her chosen moniker being the middle name of her mother, Dawson’s Creek star Katie Holmes.
Unlike Cruise’s other children – Isabella and Connor, whom he adopted when he was married to Nicole Kidman – Suri appears to have little or no relationship with her father. In contrast to other strained Hollywood parent-child bonds, such as the ongoing drama around Brad Pitt’s family, for years it has been suggested that it was Cruise, 64, who distanced himself from his own daughter more than a decade ago. Suri has never publicly commented on her relationship with her father.
Cruise pictured carrying a young Suri in 2012, around the time of his divorce from Holmes - James Devaney/WireImage
When Holmes split from Cruise in 2012, it was reported to have been, at least in part, because she did not want Suri to follow her father into the Church of Scientology. During court proceedings the following year, Cruise admitted in a deposition that his third wife wanted a divorce partly in order to “protect Suri from Scientology”.
Cruise is the world’s most famous Scientologist, a poster-boy for an otherwise secretive organisation. It has long been speculated that Cruise’s apparent estrangement from Suri – they were last seen in public together at Disney World, Florida, in 2012 – is because of his devotion to the Church.
According to former Scientologists and the Church’s own published doctrine, its antagonists can be declared a “suppressive person” (SP); when that happens, it is apparently the duty of the devoted to distance themselves from such people, even if they are family. Should a Scientologist maintain relations with an SP, they may be considered a “potential trouble source” (PTS) and run the risk of being declared an SP themselves – and thus cast out of the Church. The Church maintains that it doesn’t force its members to cut off family members who aren’t Scientologists.
If Holmes had been branded an SP following her split from Cruise – and we do not know whether she was, as the Church has not made these declarations public for decades – it may explain why the Top Gun star appeared to have distanced himself from his daughter. (This has never been confirmed by the notoriously private Cruise, who is reported to have paid Holmes $400,000 each year in child maintenance while she brought up Suri in New York.)
Suri (right) pictured with her mother, who is reported to have been paid $400,000 a year in child maintenance by Cruise - Robert Kamau/GC Images
Jon Atack is a British former Scientologist who left the organisation in 1983 and has written several books on the religion, the most recent of which is titled If Scientology Ruled the World. He tells me that had Holmes been declared an SP, then even the infant Suri could be seen as a “type one” PTS. “From Scientology’s perspective, there is no age: you are an immortal being and you are responsible for your actions from the moment you are conceived,” he says.
Tony Ortega, who has for years covered Scientology on his Underground Bunker website, recalls talking about Cruise with the late Mike Rinder, a former senior executive at the Church of Scientology who was an intimate of its leader, David Miscavige. “Celebrities get to break the rules, and he’s the most important celebrity,” says Ortega. “Mike told me that if Tom Cruise wanted to remain friends with Katie and continue to see his daughter Suri, that David Miscavige would not stand in his way; that Tom’s status as a celebrity would outweigh that.”
Atack is more blunt: “Tom Cruise can do what the hell he likes. If he wanted to talk with her, nobody is going to send him to the ethics department of Scientology.” Of course, it could well be the case that Holmes and Suri estranged themselves from Cruise. None of the parties have openly spoken about their relationships.
Cruise and Holmes pictured in 2005 around the start of their relationship - Kevin Winter/Getty
In this information vacuum, speculation has swirled for years about Cruise’s relationship with Suri – and has been further inflamed by the news of her name change now that she is an adult (she studies at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). “Suri, by changing her name, has made this a more public story,” Ortega adds. “It seems clear to me that he chose Scientology over his own daughter, and it’s just a shame.” Cruise’s publicist did not respond to requests for comment.
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It is all a far cry from when Suri was a baby. She was introduced to the world when she was just six months old, on the cover of Vanity Fair and photographed by Annie Leibovitz, no less. In the accompanying interview, Cruise gushed about how much he enjoyed being a parent.
“My whole life I always wanted to be a father. I always said to myself that my children would be able to depend on me and I would always be there for them and love them – that I’d never make a promise to my kids that I couldn’t keep,” he said. “I’m not one of those people who believe you can spoil a child with too much love. You can never give a child too much love. There’s just no way.”
With six-month-old Suri. In an interview with Vanity Fair at the time, Cruise gushed about how much he enjoyed being a father - Eric Vandeville/Gamma-Rapho/Getty
While such words may now ring hollow to Suri Noelle, Cruise’s elder children appear to be much closer with him. He adopted Isabella, now 33, and Connor, 31, when he was married to Kidman; after the couple split in 2001, they were said to have agreed a 50/50 custody split. This meant that, among other things, Isabella and Connor were raised as Scientologists themselves.
It may be that their adherence to the Church has helped them maintain paternal ties. Isabella is said to be a particularly devoted Scientologist, while Connor lives near its headquarters in Clearwater, Florida. They are occasionally spotted in public with their father, most recently at an ice hockey game in December 2023.
Nicole Kidman and Cruise in 1996 with their adopted children, Connor and Isabella, who were raised as Scientologists - Patrick Riviere/Getty
Kidman, who met Cruise on the set of Days of Thunder and married him in 1990, has hinted that the faith of her children has been the source of some tension with her. “They are able to make their own decisions. They have made choices to be Scientologists and as a mother, it’s my job to love them,” she told an Australian magazine in 2018. “And I am an example of that tolerance and that’s what I believe – that no matter what your child does, the child has love and the child has to know there is available love and I’m open here.”
The three children seem to have very different lives from one another today. Suri is starring in Midsummer!, a modern adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in Edinburgh this month in a production put on with some of her fellow students. Isabella and Connor appear to lead relatively modest lives out of the spotlight. “I don’t think Connor or Isabella crave any kind of public life,” says Ortega. “Neither one of them seems to have really wanted to be actors, or do much publicly.”
Suri Noelle pictured before her Edinburgh show this week - Ben Montgomery for The Telegraph
Isabella has a qualification in hair and make-up from London’s Delamar Academy, is an artist who describes herself as somebody that “has been drawing ever since her wee hands could pick up a pen” and sells tote bags online under the moniker Bella Kidman Cruise. Her life seems as normal as might be expected for the daughter of two Hollywood A-listers: she married a British IT consultant, Max Parker, in 2015 and was the object of tabloid fascination when it was revealed that they lived in a pebble-dashed semi-detached home in Croydon.
Isabella Cruise has as normal a life as might be expected for the daughter of two Hollywood A-listers - Dave Benett/Getty
The biggest insights it is possible to glean from Connor’s life come from his Instagram pages, which are devoted to pictures of the fish he has caught or the meats he has cooked.
None of Cruise’s children have talked about him much publicly, and neither have Kidman or Holmes (the latter of whom is said to have signed a non-disclosure agreement as part of her divorce settlement). The fact that Suri has changed her name means that she may one day decide to address her relationship, or lack thereof, with Cruise.
“She has spoken very loudly by changing her name, but she could also say other things if she wanted to,” says Ortega. “I’m really interested to see if something about that happens.”
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
