14 DAY TRIAL // Tom Cruise is suing a tabloid for a 2012 story about how he abandoned his daughter Suri after Katie Holmes filed for divorce from him, with the implication that he stopped seeing her because she and her mom were no longer Scientologists. As it turns out, the report wasn’t as inaccurate as he first tried to make it sound.
The Hollywood actor is taking the mag to court for $50 million (€37.4 million) arguing that there was never any evidence that he abandoned his daughter, because that never happened. More excerpts from his sworn deposition have now emerged online.
They reveal, among other things, that the tabloid report that Katie Holmes divorced Tom because of his involvement with Scientology was accurate, because Tom himself said it, Radar Online informs.
“Listen, I find that question offensive,” Tom said when asked if Katie divorced him “in part to protect Suri from Scientology.” “I find it, those statements offensive. Like with any relationship, there are many different levels to it. You know, I, I find it very offensive. There is no need to protect my daughter from my religion,” he added.
However, pushed on the topic of his religion and whether Katie ever indicated to him that it was one of the reasons she wanted out of the marriage, Tom said, “Did she say that? That was one of the assertions, yes.”
He refused to call her a “suppressive person,” a term used by the cult for anyone who defects from the Church, with whom all contact is severed immediately even if they still have relatives within the Church, saying that it would be an “oversimplification of a religious doctrine.”
He also denied that he ever “abandoned” his daughter, even if, later on in the same deposition, he admitted to choosing Scientology events and movie offers over spending time with her because “it felt important.”
“I mean, come on, that is absolutely disgusting. That is absolutely disgusting. And I have to tell you with everything… Listen, I am a public person, I absolutely understand. For me there is… I tolerate a tremendous amount and I’m very privileged to be able to have the life that I have, and I believe that. But there is a line that, that I draw for myself, and that’s it,” Tom said about the tabloid story.
The moment Cruise’s people announced their intention to pursue legal action against the tabloid, a rep for the mag said that they were only pointing out the obvious, namely that, at the time of writing, he hadn’t been seen or photographed with his daughter for months, which could imply that he had “abandoned” her.