tom cruise y oprah

La verdadera historia detrás de la escena de Tom Cruise en el sofá de Oprah

Por Juan Sanguino

Saltar el sofá: Comportarse de manera extraña y energética que sugiere que el individuo ha perdido el control sobre sí mismo. Diccionario MacMillan, 2008.

Has hablado de ello muchas veces durante los últimos 13 años. Tom Cruise, extasiado por su amor hacia Katie Holmes, se pone de rodillas ante Oprah Winfrey, le agarra las manos zarandeándola y culmina el número prendiendo un castillo pirotécnico al saltar sobre el sofá.

Lo que ardió aquel 23 de mayo de 2005 no fueron fuegos artificiales, sino la imagen pública de Tom Cruise. Bajo los cojines de ese sofá se abrió el abismo del chiste, el meme y el estigma: la sociedad occidental llegó a la conclusión de que Tom Cruise está como una regadera de forma colectiva, unánime e irreparable. Pero aquella anécdota, tratada por los medios americanos como un asunto de Estado, fue fruto de la mala información. La información a medias. Las fake news. Y el culpable fue, paradójicamente, un nuevo mundo en el que en teoría tenemos acceso a más información que nunca. El episodio de Tom Cruise saltando sobre el sofá de Oprah Winfrey (no es el de su casa, pero ella se comporta como si lo fuera y nosotros también) es la piedra angular de la cultura pop del siglo XXI, la piedra Rosetta del Hollywood moderno y la primera piedra en la tumba de la última estrella de verdad que nos quedaba. Para comprender su impacto hay que empezar por el principio. Y esta historia empieza, como casi todas las de los grandes hombres, con una mujer.

La publicista Pat Kingsley gobernó Hollywood como una dama de hierro durante décadas. Sus dos máximas eran “las estrellas solo quieren sentirse a salvo” y “la publicidad se basa en el control” . Antes de Kingsley, las estrellas dependían de la prensa. Ella se propuso que fuese la prensa quien dependiera de las estrellas. Kingsley era implacable en su objetivo de construir un muro de hormigón pseudotransparente alrededor de sus clientes: en las revistas exigía portada o nada, solo llegaba a acuerdos con canales de televisión si le garantizaban reportajes en varios programas distintos, elegía a dedo al entrevistador, limitaba el tiempo de la entrevista a un par de horas (antes de Kingsley, el periodista pasaba varios días con el actor) cuya grabación debía ser aprobada por ella, repartía acuerdos de confidencialidad en torno a todo lo que ocurriera antes, durante y después de la entrevista, prohibía a los asistentes a las ruedas de prensa vender las declaraciones a una lista de publicaciones que ella consideraba sensacionalistas y reclamaba la destrucción de las cintas de vídeo una vez el programa había sido emitido.

Por Vanity Fair

Por Ores Lario

Pat Kinsgley puso a la prensa a sus pies. Cuanto más poder adquiría, más estrellas la contrataban ( Sandra Bullock, Al Pacino, Meg Ryan, Will Smith, Jodie Foster ) y con cada fichaje se volvía más poderosa. Pat Kingsley tenía a Hollywood cogido por todas las partes del cuerpo que se te puedan ocurrir. Pat Kinsgley era exactamente la persona que Tom Cruise necesitaba.

Pat Kingsley mira a Tom Cruise en un evento en 2003.

Tras alcanzar la fama con Rebeldes (1981) y Risky Business (1982) , Cruise huyó a Europa, donde rodó Legend (1985) . Le aterraba exponerse a la opinión pública y a la vez, como defendía su personaje en Días de trueno , prefería “estar muerto que ser un don nadie”. Su estrategia fue perfecta: se concedió una uber-producción ( Top Gun ) y rentabilizó el bombazo con dramas de prestigio ( Nacido el 4 de julio ) bajo el ala de bastiones de la cultura y la forma de vida americanas ( Paul Newman en El color del dinero , Dustin Hoffman en Rain Man , Jack Nicholson en Algunos hombres buenos , Gene Hackman en La tapadera ) . En 1987, se casó con Mimi Rogers y no avisó ni a su agente. En 1990, se casó con ** Nicole Kidman** y abordó la segunda etapa de su carrera: afianzado como la mayor estrella del mundo, ahora quería protagonizar una vida familiar. Entonces contrató a Pat Kingsley.

Cruise y Kingsley demandaron sistemáticamente a todo medio, nacional o local, americano o europeo, que sugiriese que el actor era homosexual, que vivía atrapado en una secta o que era estéril . Cruise ganó (o alcanzó acuerdos extrajudiciales en) todas sus querellas y donó cada compensación económica a causas benéficas. Era el único actor de Hollywood cuyo nombre, por contrato, aparecía en solitario antes del título de la película. Y cuando decidió rodar su primera película de acción, Misión imposible , la produjo él mismo y seleccionó a un autor para dirigirla (Brian De Palma) . Si la prensa quería entrar en el territorio de Cruise, debía someterse a sus leyes.

Pero en 2003, durante la gira promocional de El último samurái , **Tom Cruise empezó a explicar que la iglesia de la Cienciología le había curado la dislexia. Pat Kingsley le sugirió que se relajase. Tom Cruise la despidió. “ Hay mucha gente que ha trabajado para ti y en tu nombre a lo largo de estos años y a los que no conoces”, le dijo Kingsley a su ya excliente, “me gustaría que les saludases antes de irte”. Cruise agradeció personalmente su labor a todos los empleados de Kingsley y se marchó. ** Como reemplazo, contrató Lee Anne De Vette. Su hermana. ¿Qué podía salir mal? Spoiler : todo.

Penélope Cruz y Tom Cruise bajo la mirada de Pat Kingsley en el estreno de 'El último samurai'.

A principios de 2005, Mario Lavandeira Jr. contó en su blog personal que cuando la modelo Janice Dickinson visitó las oficinas de E! él le hizo un cumplido sobre sus zapatos y ella exclamó: “¿Sabes cuántos hombres he tenido que follarme para pagarlos?”. Tras publicar la anécdota, Lavandeira (que tenía 27 años) fue despedido de E! y él decidió abrir su propia web sobre celebridades. Firmaba los artículos como Perez Hilton.

Los teléfonos móviles empezaban a incorporar cámaras y Perez Hilton animaba a sus lectores a enviarle fotos y vídeos de los famosos que se encontrasen por la calle. De repente, una imagen de Lindsay Lohan fumando en una parada de taxis era noticia, generaba conversación y atraía millones de clics. Un contenido que Hilton tardaba cinco minutos en publicar. Este modelo de optimización y rentabilización del tiempo engendró nuevas webs que imitaban la de Perez Hilton y, poco a poco, las publicaciones tradicionales se sintieron atraídas por el nuevo periodismo online y a los lectores les excitaba la idea de sentirse parte del relato. Estos nuevos medios ya no necesitaban la colaboración de las estrellas y, por lo tanto, no tenían que bailarles el agua. Ni siquiera hacía falta que ocurriesen cosas, porque ya se encargarían ellos de crear historias. Y las noticias eran contadas, desmenuzadas y comentadas a tiempo real mientras las revistas de papel todavía estaban esperando la llamada del publicista para recibir la aprobación. El 12 de mayo de 2005, 11 días antes de la visita de Tom Cruise a Oprah Winfrey, la tradicional People (que durante décadas había sido el spa donde las estrellas abrían su corazón) propuso una encuesta para sus lectores. “Tom Cruise y Katie Holmes: ¿amor verdadero o montaje promocional?” .

Oprah Winfrey solía hacer cuestionarios a las mujeres que se inscribían para asistir como público a su programa. Aquel 23 de mayo, las 300 asistentes estaban ahí porque habían respondido Tom Cruise a las preguntas “¿Cuál es tu actor favorito?”, “¿Quién es el hombre de tus sueños?” y “¿Cuál es la celebridad que más te interesa?”. Tras presentar a Tom Cruise, la audiencia ruge durante un minuto. Oprah no está contenta. “Esto es demasiado” dice, “sentaos, ¡sentaos!”. ** Durante los primeros 10 minutos, el público, presa de la adrenalina, la cafeína y (conociendo cómo se las gasta la industria farmacéutica americana) otros tipos de -inas, interrumpe la entrevista con alaridos hasta en tres ocasiones distintas.** Cruise está abrumado y se pone de rodillas para suplicar que le dejen hablar empujando así a las 300 mujeres a un trance de éxtasis religioso. Cruise repetirá este gesto cinco veces más cada vez que Oprah le acorrale. Al fin y al cabo, ese encanto lleva 20 años sacándole de aprietos. Oprah decide coger la pelota y, tal y como cabría esperar de ella, llevársela hasta la línea de meta.

Empieza el contacto físico. Oprah le sacude el pelo y le pregunta si está enamorado de Katie Holmes , la actriz de 26 años que ese mismo mes estrena Batman Begins . ¿Es amor verdadero? ¿Va a casarse con ella? ¿Le ha pedido permiso al padre de ella? ¿Quiere más hijos? Le agarra las manos, le agarra las rodillas y coge su cara para acercarla a la suya: “¿vas a pedirle que se case contigo hoy mismo?”. Cruise esquiva la bala: “eso tendré que hablarlo con ella” . Oprah se recuesta sobre el hoy legendario sofá, decepcionada y exhausta. Cruise entiende que ella ha bajado la guardia por un segundo, pone las manos sobre sus hombros y le ruega que hablen sobre La guerra de los mundos.

Pero Oprah tiene otros planes. Decide agradecerle públicamente que asistiese al evento Legends Ball, que homenajeó a mujeres negras históricas como Rosa Parks o Coretta Scott King: “recuerdo girarme hacia ti y verte de pie encima de una silla aplaudiendo, me encantó ese entusiasmo”. Esa anécdota se convierte en una broma recurrente durante la hora que dura el programa hasta el punto de que Tom Cruise, minutos más tarde, recrea el gesto y se sube al sofá . El público estalla y alcanza decibelios no registrados por el ser humano nunca antes. Cruise sonríe, mira a sus fans y vuelve a subirse al sofá. ** “¿Pero vas a casarte con ella o no?”** remata Oprah. “¡Estoy de pie en tu sofá!”, responde él. Punto, set y partido.

Aquella entrevista estaba orquestada con la intención de reinstaurar a Tom Cruise como un héroe romántico. Moraleja: cuidado con lo que deseas. Tras dos décadas de ajedrez mediático, calculando cada movimiento para proteger su vida privada, él decidió hacer claqué sobre el tablero. El actor confesó cómo había conocido a Holmes ( “quería conocerla, así que la llamé” ) , sus primeras citas a lomos de una Harley Davidson por las playas de California y sus consejos para cortejar a las mujeres ( “soy un romántico, me gusta tratar a mi mujer como se merece” ) . Al final de la entrevista, corrió a los pasillos del estudio para presentar oficialmente a su chica a medio camino entre un trofeo, una coronación y una virgen expuesta para su sacrificio. “Recuerdo que hace años contaste en la revista Seventeen que tu sueño infantil era casarte con Tom Cruise” concluyó Oprah anulándola por completo y recordándonos la diferencia de edad de 16 años. ** “Me alegro de haber tenido sueños tan grandes” se despidió Holmes.**

Exactamente un mes antes de la emisión de la entrevista, el 23 de abril de 2005, la plataforma de vídeos en streaming YouTube publicó su primer vídeo. Me At The Zoo mostraba al co-fundador de YouTube, Jawed Karim, visitando un zoológico. Hasta entonces, compartir un vídeo resultaba una yinkana virtual: había que cargarlo a una velocidad lánguida, el usuario se exponía a recibir virus y la web que lo alojaba requería un enorme ancho de banda. YouTube cambió el consumo de vídeos en internet al permitir verlos sobre la marcha y los blogs podían compartirlo dentro de sus textos sin que el lector abandonase la página.

La entrevista con Oprah duró una hora. Los blogs compartieron un segmento de cuatro minutos. La web Tvgasm lo redujo a 69 segundos. El blog Waxy editó el momento en el que Cruise agarra las manos de Oprah (gesto que repitió tres veces) y añadió rayos sacados de la otra sensación pop de mayo de 2005, La venganza de los Sith , que hacían parecer que la presentadora estaba sufriendo descargas eléctricas. El título era “Tom Cruise mata a Oprah” . Duraba 15 segundos. Y es probable que sea el momento de la entrevista que más veces has visto.

Cuando Tom Cruise salió del estudio de Oprah nadie sabía lo que era YouTube. Todos los que habían presenciado el esperpento estaban seguros de que se quedaría allí, anclado en el tiempo y en la memoria difusa de los telespectadores. “Viralidad” era un término médico. “Meme” servía para explicar la réplica por imitación de movimientos culturales como la religión, la arquitectura o los prejuicios. Y “Tom Cruise” era una estrella admirada, deseada, misteriosa. En cuestión de semanas, perdió las tres cosas porque su imagen encima del sofá de Oprah (la posteridad ha decidido que Cruise saltó sobre ese sofá, aunque solo se subiera dos veces) le arrebató lo que le había convertido en un mito del cine: que el público quisiera ser él, casarse con él o identificarse con él .

La campaña promocional de La guerra de los mundos continuó y la actitud de Cruise no ayudó. Entraba en las alfombras rojas conduciendo una moto en la que llevaba a Katie Holmes como paquete . Ella se quedaba ahí parada mientras él pasaba horas saludando a sus fans (su entrega en este tipo de eventos es incomparable) e interrumpiendo el baño de multitudes para agarrarla por la cintura, inclinarla hacia atrás y besarla en los labios. Cuando le preguntaban qué le gustaba de las mujeres, respondía ** “huelen bien, son guapas, me encantan las mujeres, me encantan”.** Durante las entrevistas, Holmes interrumpía sencillamente para decirle que le quería. Cuando ella estaba promocionando Batman Begins , recibió una caja con un collar de diamantes de Chanel, regalo que ella recibió gritando “¡es mi hombre! ¡es mi hombre” mientras saltaba en el sofá imitando el ya popular exabrupto (hasta ella creía que Cruise saltó sobre el sofá) , la chica que le estaba haciendo las uñas exclamaba “¡este es tu momento!” y el periodista de la revista W le recordaba “hablando de lo cual, tenemos que hacer la sesión de fotos”. “Hablando de lo cual” respondió Holmes, “le amo”.

En junio, mientras Steven Spielberg farfullaba en contra de que la publicidad de su última película se hubiera convertido en Lo que necesitas es amor , Tom Cruise le pidió en matrimonio a Katie Holmes. Y lo hizo de la única manera que cabía esperar de esta exaltación heterosexual del romanticismo: en lo más alto de la torre Eiffel. A continuación concedieron una rueda de prensa.

Incluso medios tan sobrios como el New York Times analizaban la debacle mediante columnas de opinión en las que definían el fenómeno como la culminación de la subversión y desestabilización de la realidad que inició Orson Welles en 1938 cuando leyó La guerra de los mundos por la radio y toda la nación entró en pánico porque se creyeron la invasión alienígena. “Pero el romance entre Cruise y Holmes” concluía el editorial, “está resultando menos creíble para los americanos en 2005 que la invasión de marcianos en 1938”.

Cuando Tom Cruise fue entrevistado por Matt Lauer en The Today Show, reconoció que solo se casaría con Holmes tras aclarar su punto de vista respecto al uso de antidepresivos. La Cienciología se opone a la psiquiatría y Cruise puso como ejemplo de negligencia a Brooke Shields , quien había defendido el consumo de Paxil para superar su depresión postparto. “Tú no conoces la historia de la psiquiatría, Matt” zanjó el actor, “Yo sí”. Pat Kingsley jamás habría permitido que esa entrevista llegase a los espectadores, pero cuando la hermana/publicista de Cruise informó al productor de que ese segmento no se iba a emitir, él se rió en su cara. “Estará listo para lanzarse como avance en unos 30 minutos y va a emitirse en bucle para que todo el mundo sintonice el programa mañana” , le aclaró.

El público se mostraba insaciable ante el bufet libre de contenido que internet ofrecía. Perez Hilton bautizó la relación de Brad Pitt y Angelina Jolie (“Brangelina”) cuando todavía no estaba confirmada. Este nuevo sistema de telerrealidad, dos años antes de que las Kardashian reclamasen el control sobre su propia vida privada como producto para las masas, pilló desprevenidos a Ben Affleck y Jennifer Lopez (“Bennifer”) , a Britney Spears y a los publicistas de Hollywood cuyo báculo de poder era ahora de juguete. Para promocionar Señor y señora Smith , Brad Pitt se llevó a Diane Sawyer a Etiopía para visitar niños enfermos y evadir las preguntas sobre su infidelidad a Jennifer Aniston mediante la siempre entrañable y a menudo efectiva demagogia: “no entiendo que el mundo se preocupe tanto de mi intimidad cuando hay niños pasando hambre” . No le funcionó. Como alertaba Gawker , “los famosos ya no pueden permitirse terminar la jornada, su existencia es un trabajo a tiempo completo y su trabajo es su existencia”.

Un año después del incidente del sofá, Paramount disolvió su contrato con Tom Cruise tras 14 años de colaboración. La guerra de los mundos no se vio perjudicada por su tocada aunque no hundida imagen pública (fue el mayor éxito de su carrera) , pero Misión imposible III recaudó menos que sus dos predecesoras. En un movimiento inédito en la industria, Paramount emitió un semihumillante comunicado aclarando que “esta decisión no tiene nada que ver con sus habilidades interpretativas, es un actor fantástico, pero c onsideramos que alguien que efectúa suicidios creativos no debería formar parte del equipo ”. Las últimas cuatro películas que Cruise hizo con Paramount generaron el 32% de los ingresos totales de la compañía.

Las narrativas no necesitan ser reales para forjarse, basta con que lo parezcan. Steven Spielberg no volvió a trabajar con Cruise. El personaje de Katie Holmes en Batman Begins fue interpretado por otra actriz (Maggie Gyllenhaal) en la secuela, El caballero oscuro . Y el reencuentro entre el actor y Oprah Winfrey, en 2008, no tenía ninguna película que promocionar: Cruise estaba promocionando su cordura. Esta vez él jugaba en casa, un rancho de Telluride (Colorado) , y la presentadora abrió con un servicio suave: “Ahora soy yo quien está en tu sofá”. Cruise desplegó la sonrisa que un día había enamorado al planeta entero: ** “Y ahora estamos sentados”.**

Hoy ya no existen estrellas como las de antes, porque ningún actor de Hollywood quiere ser una estrella. Las entrevistas son calculadas hasta la última coma para parecer espontáneas y son utilizadas como armas publicitarias que incluso trascienden el supuesto producto promocionado: millones de personas han visto a Jennifer Lawrence entrevistar a Kim Kardashian, someterse a un polígrafo o dscribiéndole a Ellen su alter ego borracho a quien ella llama Gail, pero nadie ha ido a ver las películas que estaba intentando vender ( madre! y Gorrión rojo ) .

Tom Cruise, a los 55 años, se resiste a retirarse. Desde su divorcio de Katie Holmes en 2012 no se le han conocido más relaciones y sus parejas en pantalla ya no son mayores que él como en los inicios de su carrera (Rebecca de Mornay en Risky Business , Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio en El color del dinero , Kelly McGillis en Top Gun ) sino desconocidas 20 años más jóvenes que él (Annabelle Wallis en La momia , Rebecca Ferguson en Misión imposible: protocolo fantasma , Andrea Riseborough y Olga Kurylenko en Oblivion ) . La percepción extendida de que el antaño infalible actor se había vuelto veneno para la taquilla ( Leones por corderos , que según el New York Times “ingresó cadáver en la cartelera”, Noche y día, Valkyria ) le ha llevado a agazaparse detrás de la saga Misión imposible (la cuarta y quinta entregas han batido sendos récords de taquilla en su filmografía) y en sucedáneos de sí mismo. En esos vehículos de acción a su servicio, Tom Cruise interpreta una y otra vez el mismo personaje, quizá para convencernos de que él es así o para convencerse a sí mismo de que lo es: en todas ellas, interpreta a un hombre que tiene un control total sobre su destino .

Por Julie Miller

Por David Canfield

Por Álex Ander

Por Paloma Simón

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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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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 :

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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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How Tom Cruise Jumping on Oprah's Couch Changed Everything

Ten years ago, a media event took place that changed the public's perception of one of its most beloved stars. And while he has continued to see success, his image has never recovered — and it's possible it never will. I'm referring of course to the jump heard 'round the world: Tom Cruise 's interview with Oprah Winfrey .

Freshly in love with Katie Holmes , a relationship long speculated to be the result of a "wife search" sanctioned and lead by the Church of Scientology, Cruise visited his friend Oprah — and a very on-board audience who loved every moment of the interview — and discussed his newfound happiness. And he did so by grabbing Oprah's hands, standing on the couch, and retrieving Holmes from backstage to show off his prize.

Some things go viral and when we look back years later, we see they weren't such a big deal. This is not one of those things. This is just as awkward as it was in 2005.

People responded. And the response was an embarrassment. While the studio audience was incredibly stoked, the viewers at home — and online — were weirded out. This display of emotion was so intense, so striking, that it rang false. Or, if not false, definitely kind of creepy. It was too much. So, the memes began.

Cruise would continue to have box office success thanks to the Mission Impossible franchise — though for a few years his star dimmed a bit. (Anyone remember Lions for Lambs or Knight and Day ?) But the public's image of him has never been the same. Never again would he be dreamboat Tom Cruise, universally beloved celebrity. He has been since and will remain the overly intense guy who either must be hiding something or has lost the ability to act like a regular person.

Critics have blamed bloggers and internet culture for their abuse of the clips, like the above, ultimately leading to the backlash that still exists against Cruise, but it was more than just a couch jump. This was also a time when the internet was giving the public more information than ever before, meaning most of us were learning about Scientology for the first time. We saw this video on YTMND , we could read about Operation Snow White and other scary stuff, and we would soon all be able to read this still terrifying Katie Holmes W magazine interview . If you missed that interview back in 2005, it's still a great, creepy read. Holmes answers every question with a robot-like focus on how perfect Cruise is (whether that was the question or not) and is often answered for by a Scientology handler. Cruise's Oprah exuberance was clearly contagious — here's one example:

...A security guard lumbers into the dressing room and presents Holmes with a giant silver box tied in a thick purple ribbon. A small crowd gathers to watch her gleefully tear open the package and pluck out a Chanel diamond necklace—a gift, naturally, from Cruise. “He’s my man! He’s my man!” she screams, then jumps up on her chair to do an impression of her fiancé’s now-famous sofa shtick from Oprah.

People begin to cheer. “This is your moment!” cries the manicurist.

“I can do splits too,” Holmes says, jumping down and splaying herself across the floor. On that note, I suggest, we should probably get the photo shoot started.

“On that note,” she replies, “I love him.”

And when the two split years later, no one was surprised by tales of Holmes's harrowing escape — and no one saw that as mere media hyperbole. Our eyes had been opened to the fact that movie star Tom Cruise was also perhaps weird public figure Tom Cruise. And he likely always will be.

What came first: the couch or our discomfort? Oprah may have been the impetus, but Cruise was hardly a victim of mean memes and viral videos. He was a victim of a public that had become too difficult to fake it in front of.

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Tom Cruise Jumped on Oprah’s Couch, Freaked Out Over Being in Love With Katie Holmes 10 Years Ago – Relive the Moment!

“Calm yourselves!” That is what Oprah Winfrey had to tell the audience when Tom Cruise appeared on her talk show 10 years ago — little did she know, it would be Cruise himself who needed to calm down.

Related: PHOTOS: TomKat -- the way they were

As the world is well aware, the Mission: Impossible star couldn’t contain himself while declaring his love for then-girlfriend Katie Holmes during a 2005 interview with Winfrey. Cruise, who was known as an uber-private celebrity, pumped his fist in the air, kneeled on the floor, and most notably, jumped on Winfrey’s couch with giddiness while confessing his infatuation with Holmes in a moment that has since gone — and stayed — viral.

“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,” a hyper Cruise told the talk show host. “I admired her and I thought I wanted to meet her so I called her because I wanted to meet her. You see someone’s work and you hear about them and you hear what a special person she is…and I wanted to meet this person and I met her and she’s extraordinary.”

Related: PHOTOS: Kaite's life after Tom

While Cruise was unable to contain his emotions, a shocked Winfrey explained to the crowd: “I’ve never seen this. What happened to you?!” After he jumped on her couch — repeatedly! — Oprah concluded: “He’s gone. He’s gone. The boy is gone!”

Following the 2005 interview, the clip was turned into thousands of memes, including standout “Tom Cruise Kills Oprah.”

Winfrey, however, wasn’t exactly in on the fun. “Certainly, I did not think it would turn into the brouhaha that it did,” she later told TV Guide Magazine . “I thought it was an expression of delightful exuberance and love that any woman… would be thrilled to have her man jump on a sofa in love with her,” she said, while adding that she thought that re-airing the footage would be “really, really unfair.”

Related: PHOTOS: How Katie transformed for Tom

As for Cruise and Holmes, well, we all know what happened. The couple announced they were expecting their first child together, Suri, just six months after going public with their romance. Suri Cruise was born in April 2006, and that December her parents tied the knot. Before starting their life together, Holmes, who was born Catholic, converted to Scientology for Cruise. The religion is rumored to be the downfall of their marriage.

After five years together — and a complete glam transformation for Holmes — the Dawson’s Creek alum filed for divorce in June 2012. In a statement to Us Weekly , the actress’ attorney told Us at the time: “This is a personal and private matter for Katie and her family. Katie’s primary concern remains, as it always has been, her daughter’s best interest.” While Cruise’s rep offered: “Kate has filed for divorce and Tom is deeply saddened and is concentrating on his three children. Please allow them their privacy.”

During an August 2014 appearance on the Today show , Holmes, who is now happily dating Jamie Foxx , said she never reflects on their split.

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Related: PHOTOS: Suri's fabulous life

“I never really look back. I just approach life [taking] it one day at a time,” she told Matt Lauer . “I’m really excited about where I am right now. I’ve had some really wonderful creative experiences. I’m just really grateful.”

Cruise, who has yet to publicly date anyone since their split, and Holmes continue to share joint custody of their now 9-year-old daughter, Suri.

Prior to Holmes, Cruise was married to Nicole Kidman from 1990 to 2001 and then dated Penelope Cruz for three years until 2004.

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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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It's the 10-Year Anniversary of Tom Cruise Jumping on Oprah Winfrey's Couch—Watch to Relive It All Over Again!

See the "brouhaha" all over again.

It has been TEN years since Tom Cruise famously jumped on Oprah Winfrey 's couch while declaring his love for then-wife Katie Holmes . Can you believe it?!

It has been a decade since he told Oprah's audience, "I'm in love," before hopping up and down like a madman on that famous gold couch. Do we feel old? Do we feel deceived? Who could've known that the man who was so in love with the Dawson's Creek alum would later get divorced to the subject of his hyperactivities?

Color us surprised about the fallout, but at least the Internet has blessed us with the ability to re-watch this momentous occasion all over again. While watching the video on a loop might make you think he's a little crazy, his actions were entirely out of his excitement and love for Katie.

"She's truly extraordinary," he told Oprah and the riled audience of his then-girlfriend while promoting War of the Worlds .

"Dear God, you are gone," Oprah told him between laughs.

"I'm gone and I don't care," Cruise responded.

PHOTOS: Over-the-top celebrity weddings

With the dawn of YouTube, the clip went viral and even spawned another video,  Tom Cruise Kills Oprah , using some graphics and the meme on a loop. His zealous attitude about Katie at the time might have affected the way many perceived the Hollywood A-lister, and even the talk show host later came out and said she felt bad for the way that interview turned out.

"Certainly, I did not think it would turn into the brouhaha that it did," Oprah later told  TV Guide Magazine . "I thought it was an expression of delightful exuberance and love that any woman… would be thrilled to have her man jump on a sofa in love with her...I think the use of that clip was really, really unfair."

She refused to re-air the footage afterwards, calling the wave of viral clips "unfair."

NEWS: Did Tom Cruise lose a tooth?

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Even though they would go on to get married in 2006, many believed the courtship was a farce. An opinion piece in the  New York Times  called the romance a "lavishly produced freak show, designed to play out in real time, enthusiastically enacted by the biggest star in the business."

The marriage may not have lasted forever, but this video will. Watch the clip above to see Tom Cruise make Oprah's couch debatably more famous than he is. 

PHOTOS: Tom Cruise's leading ladies

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It's Been 10 Years Since Tom Cruise Jumped on Oprah's Couch

On May 23, 2005, the world was shaken to the core. Well, mostly just one couch on the set of The Oprah Winfrey Show was shook, but it definitely seemed like a much bigger deal. It’s true: Tomorrow is officially the 10-year anniversary of that time Tom Cruise (or as Oprah would call him, “TOM CRUIIIIIIIIIIISE”) jumped on  Oprah Winfrey ’s couch.

And it was all over Katie Holmes . The conversation went something like this:

Tom: "She's truly extraordinary." Oprah: "Dear God, you are gone." Tom: "I'm gone and I don't care.”

WATCH: Is Scientology keeping Tom Cruise from seeing Suri? Find out

Here is Tom Cruise’s couch incident by the numbers:

1 - Number of months after Tom and Katie confirmed they were dating. 1 - Number of years (approximately) before “TomKat” got married. 5 - Number of times Tom got down on one knee, a pose later made popular by Tim Tebow. The Pre-bow? 3 - Number of times Tom grabbed Oprah’s hands and shook her body. 1 - Number of times Tom jump onto Oprah’s couch. (Which is not to be mistake with Tom jumping on Oprah’s couch, which contrary to collective memory, he did not do.) 7 - Number of years before they got divorced.

It’s the gift that kept on giving. Like when it gave us the gift of this GIF:

NEWS: Cruise was “scared sh*tless” doing ‘Mission: Impossible’ stunts

Not everyone thought it was as funny: "Certainly, I did not think it would turn into the brouhaha that it did," Oprah told TV Guide . "I thought it was an expression of delightful exuberance and love that any woman...would be thrilled to have her man jump on a sofa in love with her."

“I think the use of that clip was really, really unfair,” Oprah continued, scolding literally the entire world. Ten years later, Tom likely thought people had gotten over the couch thing or forgotten it ever happened.

Well. The Internet never forgets.

Let’s end on a positive note: Remember all the awesome action movies Tom Cruise has given us?

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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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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.

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Suri Cruise turns 18 and is still estranged from Tom: ‘Not a Scientologist, never will be’

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Suri Cruise was once the most famous baby in America.

The arrival of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ daughter on April 18, 2006, sparked a global frenzy for the first glimpse of the A-list infant.

But it wasn’t until five months after her birth that she made her debut — on the cover of Vanity Fair, wrapped in the arms of her doting parents, in glossy photos taken by photographer to the stars, Annie Leibovitz.

Now she turns 18 on Thursday and faces a choice: Whether to return to the level of fame she had as a kid — when there were blogs devoted to her fashion — or maintain the carefully-guarded life Holmes has built for her since she blindsided Cruise by filing for divorce.

The dark-haired teen has grown up in Manhattan largely shielded from the spotlight by her loving and highly protective mom, 45, far removed from her 60-year-old father’s Church of Scientology.

As Page Six revealed last year, Suri is estranged from her famous father and the pair have no relationship.

An industry source told us this week that the “Mission: Impossible” star has not seen Suri since 2012. “Katie has safeguarded Suri and she’s a devoted mom,” the source said.

“This is a girl who is a private citizen. She hasn’t lived her life in public.”

Holmes told Glamour magazine in 2023 that she likes to “protect” Suri from the public eye “because she was so visible at a young age.”

“I’m very grateful to be a parent, to be her parent. She’s an incredible person. She’s my heart,” she added.

Being the only daughter of a protective single parent is a stark contrast to how Suri’s life began, of course.

“My whole life I always wanted to be a father,” Cruise gushed to VF back in 2006.

“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.

“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.”

He already had two adopted children, Bella, now 31, and Connor, now 29, from his marriage to Nicole Kidman and after her Vanity Fair debut was happy to parade Suri for the paparazzi.

Cruise had famously declared their romance by jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey’s couch in May 2005, yelling “I’m in love!” 

But when Suri was just 6, Holmes filed for divorce after six years of marriage with the help of her dad, Martin Holmes, a fierce attorney, and through a secret plan that entailed using burner phones.

Cruise was taken completely by surprise by the filing while he was on the set of “Oblivion” in Iceland in June 2012.

He and Suri were last seen together at Disney World in the summer of 2012.

In November 2013, during a deposition in his $50 million court battle against a pair of tabloid magazines, the “Top Gun” star admitted that Holmes had filed for divorce “to protect Suri from Scientology,” court documents revealed.

Despite not having a relationship; as per their divorce agreement, Cruise, who has an estimated $600 million fortune, agreed to pay Holmes $400,000 a year until Suri turns 18 as well as future “medical, dental, insurance, education, college and other extracurricular costs”.

Scientology lies at the heart of the question over Suri’s future.

Holmes, who rose to fame in the TV hit, “Dawson’s Creek,” is believed to have signed multiple non-disclosure documents that will prevent her from ever talking about her marriage to Cruise — and her time inside Scientology.

But when Suri turns 18, NY state declares that she is at the age of majority, when an individual is legally considered an adult.

That would allow her to speak about her father, his beliefs and their rift.

Tony Ortega, who has covered Scientology in depth for decades, told Page Six, “Suri would have been too young to sign any agreement, but she will now be free to talk if she wants to and it’s going to be really interesting if she has something to say.”

We have reached out to reps for Cruise, Holmes and the Church of Scientology. 

“Part of why Katie left when she did when Suri was 6 was that Katie would have seen Isabella and Connor going through Scientology,” said Ortega.

Cruise is of course Scientology’s most famous follower and seen as one of its most powerful figures, possibly second only to its leader, David Miscavige.

That power has led Ortega and former Scientologists to question what action Miscavige and other top Scientologists may have taken against Holmes and her daughter.

Regular members who quit are declared “suppressive persons (SP)” and those who stay in Scientology are told to completely cut them off.

“We don’t know for sure if Katie was ever declared an SP,” Ortega said.

“If you are a regular church member you could be told to disconnect from your wife and daughter, but because Tom is a celebrity — he’s  the top celebrity — he gets to ignore all this stuff.

“Your average member would be kicked out, but David Miscavige can’t do that with Tom.”

Both Mike Rinder and Jeff Augustine, two high-profile former Scientologists, agreed with this claim.

Augustine is married to Karen de la Carriere, who was one of the highest-ranking church leaders until she left in 2010 and told Page Six, “The situation with Suri is a larger story about Scientology and the subject of how they make people no longer useful to them or threats to them non-persons.

“It’s like they cease to exist and that’s what happened to Suri.”

Back in August 2020, Leah Remini — one of the most famous celebrities to leave and speak out against Scientology — told us that she believed Cruise, who now lives mainly in the UK , was waiting until Suri is older so he could indoctrinate her into Scientology.

Remini, who attended Cruise and Holmes’ November 2006 Italian wedding at the 15th-century Odescalchi Castle, said, “I’m sure his master plan is to wait until Suri gets older so that he can lure her into Scientology and away from her mother.”

Suri has tiptoed very gently into her parents’ showbusiness world while attending her exclusive Manhattan day school, singing “Blue Moon” in the opening credits of Holmes’ 2022 movie, “Alone Together.”

“I always want the highest level of talent,” Holmes said. “So I asked her! She’s very, very talented. She said she would do it and she recorded it, and I let her do her thing.”

Suri also sang in the film “Rare Objects,” which Holmes also directed.

Holmes will this year return to Broadway in a revival of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town”.

She has not remarried but had a six-year romance with actor Jamie Foxx which she kept under the radar before their split in August 2019 and went on to have a brief fling with  Nolita restaurateur Emilio Vitolo Jr. in 2021.

Holmes is careful not to speak out too much about her daughter, who is now preparing for college, once saying, “She came out very strong — she’s always been a strong personality.”

But she is now getting ready for her daughter to leave the nest.

“You want them to stay with you forever, but they’re these amazing beings, and you have to do everything you can to give them what they need — and then they’re going to go,” she told Town & Country in 2017.

“And that’s going to be very, very sad for me.”

As for the future, former Scientology spokesperson Mike Rinder, who has not seen his own two eldest children since he quit the organization, told Page Six, “Suri is not a Scientologist and never will be…she deserves love and sympathy.”

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Suri Cruise was once the most famous baby in America.

The arrival of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ daughter on April 18, 2006, sparked a global frenzy for the first glimpse of the A-list infant.

But it wasn’t until five months after her birth that she made her debut — on the cover of Vanity Fair, wrapped in the arms of her doting parents, in glossy photos taken by photographer to the stars, Annie Leibovitz.

Now she turns 18 this week and faces a choice: Whether to return to the level of fame she had as a kid — when there were blogs devoted to her fashion — or maintain the carefully-guarded life Holmes has built for her since she blindsided Cruise by filing for divorce.

The dark-haired teen has grown up in Manhattan largely shielded from the spotlight by her loving and highly protective mum, 45, far removed from her 60-year-old father’s Church of Scientology.

As Page Six revealed last year, Suri is estranged from her famous father and the pair have no relationship.

An industry source told us this week that the Mission: Impossible star has not seen Suri since 2012. “Katie has safeguarded Suri and she’s a devoted mum,” the source said.

“This is a girl who is a private citizen. She hasn’t lived her life in public.”

Holmes told Glamour magazine in 2023 that she likes to “protect” Suri from the public eye “because she was so visible at a young age.”

“I’m very grateful to be a parent, to be her parent. She’s an incredible person. She’s my heart,” she added.

Being the only daughter of a protective single parent is a stark contrast to how Suri’s life began, of course.

“My whole life I always wanted to be a father,” Cruise gushed to VF back in 2006.

“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.

“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.”

He already had two adopted children, Bella, now 31, and Connor, now 29, from his marriage to Nicole Kidman and after her Vanity Fair debut was happy to parade Suri for the paparazzi.

Cruise had famously declared their romance by jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey’s couch in May 2005, yelling “I’m in love!”

But when Suri was just 6, Holmes filed for divorce after six years of marriage with the help of her dad, Martin Holmes, a fierce lawyer, and through a secret plan that entailed using burner phones.

Cruise was taken completely by surprise by the filing while he was on the set of Oblivion in Iceland in June 2012.

He and Suri were last seen together at Disney World in the summer of 2012.

In November 2013, during a deposition in his $US50 million court battle against a pair of tabloid magazines, the Top Gun star admitted that Holmes had filed for divorce “to protect Suri from Scientology,” court documents revealed.

Despite not having a relationship; as per their divorce agreement, Cruise, who has an estimated $US600 million fortune, agreed to pay Holmes $US400,000 a year until Suri turns 18 as well as future “medical, dental, insurance, education, college and other extra-curricular costs”.

Scientology lies at the heart of the question over Suri’s future.

Holmes, who rose to fame in the TV hit, Dawson’s Creek , is believed to have signed multiple nondisclosure documents that will prevent her from ever talking about her marriage to Cruise — and her time inside Scientology.

But when Suri turns 18, NY state declares that she is at the age of majority, when an individual is legally considered an adult.

That would allow her to speak about her father, his beliefs and their rift.

Tony Ortega, who has covered Scientology in depth for decades, told Page Six, “Suri would have been too young to sign any agreement, but she will now be free to talk if she wants to and it’s going to be really interesting if she has something to say.”

We have reached out to reps for Cruise, Holmes and the Church of Scientology.

“Part of why Katie left when she did when Suri was 6 was that Katie would have seen Isabella and Connor going through Scientology,” said Ortega.

Cruise is of course Scientology’s most famous follower and seen as one of its most powerful figures, possibly second only to its leader, David Miscavige.

That power has led Ortega and former Scientologists to question what action Miscavige and other top Scientologists may have taken against Holmes and her daughter.

Regular members who quit are declared “suppressive persons (SP)” and those who stay in Scientology are told to completely cut them off.

“We don’t know for sure if Katie was ever declared an SP,” Ortega said.

“If you are a regular church member you could be told to disconnect from your wife and daughter, but because Tom is a celebrity — he’s the top celebrity — he gets to ignore all this stuff.

“Your average member would be kicked out, but David Miscavige can’t do that with Tom.”

Both Mike Rinder and Jeff Augustine, two high-profile former Scientologists, agreed with this claim.

Augustine is married to Karen de la Carriere, who was one of the highest-ranking church leaders until she left in 2010 and told Page Six, “The situation with Suri is a larger story about Scientology and the subject of how they make people no longer useful to them or threats to them non-persons.

“It’s like they cease to exist and that’s what happened to Suri.”

Back in August 2020, Leah Remini — one of the most famous celebrities to leave and speak out against Scientology — told us that she believed Cruise, who now lives mainly in the UK, was waiting until Suri is older so he could indoctrinate her into Scientology.

Remini, who attended Cruise and Holmes’ November 2006 Italian wedding at the 15th-century Odescalchi Castle, said, “I’m sure his master plan is to wait until Suri gets older so that he can lure her into Scientology and away from her mother.”

Suri has tiptoed very gently into her parents’ showbusiness world while attending her exclusive Manhattan day school, singing B lue Moon in the opening credits of Holmes’ 2022 movie, Alone Together.

“I always want the highest level of talent,” Holmes said. “So I asked her! She’s very, very talented. She said she would do it and she recorded it, and I let her do her thing.”

Suri also sang in the film Rare Objects , which Holmes also directed.

Holmes will this year return to Broadway in a revival of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town .

She has not remarried but had a six-year romance with actor Jamie Foxx which she kept under the radar before their split in August 2019 and went on to have a brief fling with Nolita restaurateur Emilio Vitolo Jr. in 2021.

Holmes is careful not to speak out too much about her daughter, who is now preparing for college, once saying, “She came out very strong — she’s always been a strong personality.”

But she is now getting ready for her daughter to leave the nest.

“You want them to stay with you forever, but they’re these amazing beings, and you have to do everything you can to give them what they need — and then they’re going to go,” she told Town & Country in 2017.

More Coverage

“And that’s going to be very, very sad for me.”

As for the future, former Scientology spokesperson Mike Rinder, who has not seen his own two eldest children since he quit the organisation, told Page Six, “Suri is not a Scientologist and never will be … she deserves love and sympathy.”

This story originally appeared on Page Six and is republished here with permission.

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s daughter has been spotted in a rare sighting, and she looks just like her famous mother.

The former Neighbours star was seen living it up as he took a break from his stage show in Sydney.

The daughter of one of the world’s most successful rappers has just celebrated her bachelorette party and she looks incredible.

Suri Cruise cumple 18 años: llega a la mayoría de edad y será libre para hablar de sus padres

La hija de los actores tom cruise y katie holmes vive distanciada de su padre desde el divorcio de la pareja en 2012, cuando se marchó a vivir con su madre a nueva york para llevar una vida sorprendentemente normal.

La primera vez que el mundo vio la cara de Suri Cruise, por entonces ya el bebé más famoso del planeta, la criatura tenía apenas cinco meses. Pero pese a su corta edad se había colocado en el lugar central de la portada de Vanity Fair y aparecía en todo su temprano esplendor, retratada por nada menos que por la fotógrafa Annie Leibovitz . La fotografía, así como el reportaje que la acompañaba (con varias imágenes más), certeramente titulado ¿Alguien quería verme? , daba una idea de las cotas de popularidad de la pequeña. De aquello han pasado 18 años (menos cinco meses). Los que cumple este 18 de abril la joven, ya adulta, hija de los actores Tom Cruise y Katie Holmes. Su popularidad no es hoy tan inmensa, sino que la palabra que más la define es hermetismo. Y eso es justo lo que ahora, con su mayoría de edad (en el Estado de Nueva York es a los 18 años, no a los 21), puede cambiar, porque será libre para hablar de sus mediáticos padres si le place. Más difícil ya es que, efectivamente, cambie.

La discreción es hoy día el sinónimo de Suri Cruise. En realidad, la normalidad. No es que se esconda por Nueva York, donde vive con su madre desde hace más de una década. Es que hace una vida plena. Es normal verla de compras, paseando, con compañeros de estudios, en una cafetería... cualquier cosa que una chica de su edad pudiera hacer. Una vida muy distinta de la de sus primeros años, cuando cada uno de sus movimientos, gestos, looks y caprichos infantiles eran analizados. Sin levantar un palmo del suelo era habitual de las publicaciones de moda y tendencias. Las cámaras la seguían allá donde fueran. Como comentó su madre en una entrevista (algo poco usual en ella) hace cuatro años con la revista InStyle , llevaba a la niña al parque a las seis de la mañana para no ser perseguidas.

De pequeña no tuvo una vida normal. Pero probablemente nunca lo sea del todo, al tener Suri el apellido Cruise, y ser Tom una de las más grandes estrellas del firmamento cinematográfico global. Eso sí, la relación padre e hija es escasa. Según medios estadounidenses como Page Six , no se ven desde el año 2012, aunque él estaría obligado a pasarle una pensión de 400.000 dólares anuales que, precisamente, acabará ahora con la mayoría de edad —el actor deberá seguir haciéndose cargo de los gastos médicos y educativos de Suri—.

El verano de 2012 fue en el que se conoció la separación de la hasta entonces mediática pareja formada por Holmes y Cruise. Su relación, expuesta de manera constante en los medios (¿quién olvida los saltos de un emocionado Tom Cruise en un sofá durante una entrevista con Oprah Winfrey en 2005?), culminó en una enorme boda en un castillo italiano en noviembre de 2006 ante 250 invitados, la pequeña Suri entre ellos. Pero la Cienciología, a la que el actor pertenece y es fiel, siempre fue una más en el matrimonio, hasta acabar con él. La intérprete nunca entró en el culto, y sobre todo no quiso que su hija participara de él, y la separación fue total. Las dos pusieron tierra de por medio ese mismo verano para marcharse a Nueva York y dejar a Cruise en Los Ángeles (donde vive, a caballo con el Reino Unido). Él sigue muy vinculado a la secta, y según han contado antiguos miembros de la misma que les han conocido y han pasado por situaciones similares, ya es como si Katie y Suri no existieran para ellos. Cuando un miembro abandona la iglesia, a menudo su familia le da de lado, e incluso puede también ser expulsada de la misma, algo que no ha ocurrido con el actor. Solo ellos tres (y sus abogados) conocen los hechos concretos, pero es difícil que cualquiera de ellos hable al respecto, pese a que Suri podría hacerlo desde hoy mismo.

Antes de su relación con Katie Holmes, Cruise tuvo otros dos hijos, Bella y Connor. Los adoptó junto a Nicole Kidman mientras estuvieron casados. Ahora tienen 31 y 29 años y siguen manteniendo una buena relación con el actor, aunque no ya con Kidman. “Son adultos. Son capaces de tomar sus propias decisiones. Han tomado la decisión de ser cienciólogos y como madre, mi trabajo es amarlos”, afirmaba la actriz en 2018 . Bella se casó hace años sin la presencia de su madre y ha llegado a ser predicadora de su culto . De hecho, para Katie Holmes observar el desarrollo en la Cienciología de los dos jóvenes, por entonces apenas unos niños, fue lo que en parte la movió a alejar a Suri de ese camino.

La vida de madre e hija cambió mucho hace algo más de una década, pero en esta década apenas ha cambiado. Ambas viven en Manhattan tranquilas y en mutua compañía. Holmes mantuvo en secreto una relación con el actor Jamie Foxx que no se conoció casi hasta su final. Empezaron a verse en 2013, pero fue en 2017 —cuando pasaron cinco años desde su divorcio con Cruise; según algunos medios estadounidenses ella tenía una cláusula que le prohibía hacer público cualquier romance— cuando se supo de su unión. Posaron juntos en mayo de 2019, pero en agosto de ese año terminó su noviazgo. Más tarde se la ha relacionado con cocineros, actores... de manera casual. A Suri los paparazzis por el momento todavía no la persiguen buscándole novio ni novia. Quizá, por una vez, la normalidad ha salido ganando.

Sobre la firma

Más información.

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