It has been more than a decade since Suri Cruise, now 16, was last seen in public with her father Tom following his split with Suri’s mother Katie Holmes.
The teenager and her 60-year-old father are said to have a ‘complicated’ relationship following her parents’ divorce with reports the pair are estranged because Suri does not follow her father’s controversial Scientologist faith.
And after Cruise was reported to have avoided the Oscars this year (despite the rip-roaring success of his Hollywood blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick) so he didn’t have to worry about bumping into his ex-wife and mother of his two older children Nicole Kidman, fans were reminded of their bitter divorce over the Scientology when the Australian actress also refused to join the church.
When Cruise’s second wife Holmes filed for divorce in 2012, she was granted custody of their daughter, who was then six years old. However, Cruise was given frequent visitation rights.
Living with Holmes since the split, Suri has lived a relatively quiet life with her mother, who was keen to keep her out of the limelight in her younger years. However, now she has reached 16, her mother reveals more about her teenage daughter, and has even enlisted her in some projects.
Suri Cruise, 16 (pictured with her mother Katie Holmes in New York), hasn’t been seen in public with her father Tom Cruise since 2013 and is not a member of the controversial Church of Scientology, a faith of which he is a devoted member
Last year a trailer for a rom-com starring and directed by Holmes, Alone Together, featured Suri singing Blue Moon on the soundtrack, as her mother praised her daughter as ‘the best’.
When Cruise and Holmes announced their split in 2012, the couple reached a custody agreement that stated Suri’s mother would care for her most of the time, while Cruise would see her regularly.
Despite this, the Hollywood titan was reported not to have seen his daughter for more than 100 days that same year, between a holiday they took in August and Thanksgiving in November.
After In Touch magazine reported that Cruise had ‘abandoned’ his daughter, he sued the publication for libel in a $50 million lawsuit. As the case played out in court, he acknowledged he had gone around three months without seeing Suri but added that it was due to factors out of his control.
Suri Cruise sang in the film trailer for Alone Together, a romantic comedy directed by and starring her mother Katie Holmes (pictured with Jim Sturgess in the film)
Suri Cruise lived a relatively private childhood following her parents’ divorce, however she made an appearance with Holmes at the Jingle Ball in 2017
Tom Cruise has not been pictured in public with his daughter Suri for more than a decade (pictured with Holmes and Suri in 2011, a year before Holmes filed for divorce)
Instead, he explained he had been working to a tight and intense filming schedule on his action movie All You Need is Kill in London, which left little room for free time of any kind.
‘Unfortunately in this situation it was impossible,’ he told the court, according to People.
He added that, far from abandoning his daughter, he called her every day – although he conceded it was not the same as seeing his young daughter in person and that speaking to a child on the phone can be difficult.
He said: ‘You have to work at it. I’ve gotten very good at it. I tell wonderful stories.’
At the time of the split, sources close to Holmes had reported that she and her ex were keen on co-parenting Suri. However in recent years Cruise has not been seen in public with his daughter.
And as the Top Gun actor remains a powerful figure in the Church of Scientology, former followers of the faith have suggested it has restricted Cruise from seeing Suri.
In 2019 Samantha Domingo, who stopped following Scientology in 2004, claimed Cruise was ‘not allowed’ to have a relationship with his daughter because she is not a Scientologist.
The author, who has penned a book about her time in the church, told US Weekly that, due to the Church’s belief in reincarnation, they will not view Suri as Cruise’s daughter. Instead, she claimed they saw Suri as ‘a spiritual being in his daughter’s body’.
However, a spokesman for the Church of Scientology dismissed the claims as ‘fiction’.
However, as Suri approaches adulthood and still has not been seen in public with her father for around a decade, her future seems unlikely to feature Scientology.
But while little is known about the teenager’s relationship with her father, she is known to be incredibly close with her mother, Holmes.
And while Holmes has kept her daughter out of the limelight while growing up, she has offered Suri some glimpses of the A-List life after appearing on stage with her at the Jingle Ball in 2017, and more recently hiring her to sing in films she has directed.
Holmes’s rom-com Alone Together, which was released last year, features a cover of ballad Blue Moon in the trailer, which is sweetly sung by Suri.
Speaking to Yahoo Entertainment about her decision to cast her daughter as the singer of the cover, Holmes was full of praise for Suri.
She said: ‘I always want the highest level of talent. 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.’
In the same interview, Holmes revealed she had also enlisted Suri to sing in another film she had directed, Rare Objects.
Despite two very impressive credits to her name and being the daughter of two of Hollywood’s biggest names, Holmes insisted Suri remained, for the most part, ‘a 16-year-old kid doing high school’.
Aside from a potential singing career (with a little help from her mother), Suri is thought to be something of a fashionista who inspires her mother, with Holmes recently revealing she sometimes pinches accessories from her daughter.
Back in 2011 when Suri was just four years old, Katie Holmes told Elle that her daughter would often pass comment on her clothes.
She revealed: ‘Today I’m wearing brown suede pants, and she said, ‘I don’t like your pants.’ But then she’ll say, ‘You’ve got to wear these shoes.’ Or ‘That’s so pretty, Mom. Wear that.’ She’s got a great eye.’
During an interview with InStyle in 2020, Holmes sat down to chat while wearing her then 14-year-old daughter’s purple hair scrunchie.
She revealed that, by then, Suri had surpassed the ‘girlie stage’ of her life and was becoming her own person.
Gushing with affection for her daughter, Holmes said she had raised Suri to be independent and hard working.
‘She came out very strong — she’s always been a strong personality. She’ll pick an activity and work her butt off until she’s really good at it,’ Holmes described.
‘Then she’s like, “OK, I’m going to try the next thing.” She’s very focused and a hard worker.’
So whatever challenge Suri takes on next, it’s likely she’ll really throw herself into it, according to her mother.
