Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes split after five years

Holmes files for divorce amidst rumours that the couple was arguing over Suri.

LOS ANGELES:

Fairytale Hollywood couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes announced they were calling it quits after five years of marriage, ending an unexpected love story dogged by tabloid rumors.

“Katie has filed for divorce and Tom is deeply saddened and is concentrating on his three children,” Amanda Lundberg, Cruise’s representative, told AFP on Friday. “Please allow them their privacy to work this out.”

Cruise, who famously declared his love for the former “Dawson’s Creek” star live on “Oprah”, began courting Holmes in 2005. Their whirlwind romance soon culminated in a romantic proposal under the Eiffel Tower in June 2005, followed by a storybook castle wedding in Italy in November 2006.

Their split comes amidst rumours that the couple have been arguing over their six-year-old daughter, Suri. With Cruise deep set in the principles of Scientology, Katie fears that Suri will follow in her father’s footsteps. “This is a personal and private matter for Katie and her family,” said Jonathan Wolfe, the attorney representing Holmes. “Katie’s primary concern remains, as it always has been, her daughter’s best interest.”

Along with their custody battle over Suri, reports concerning the couple’s prenuptial agreement have also begun to resurface. At the time of their marriage, it was allegedly reported that Holmes would receive $3 million for every year of their marriage plus ownership of a Californian mansion if they split, but since then no new information has been released on the matter. Tabloids, shadowing the couple since the get-go, have speculated for some time that their relationship was on the rocks after the pair was not seen together for several months. In an interview with Playboy magazine in May Cruise even said he would be spending his 50^th birthday, coming up on Tuesday, shooting a movie in Iceland — without his significant other. When asked to address rumours about his private life, Cruise added, “You just have to keep going and remember that. The other stuff? I hear it, I read it, I get it. But life is not a matter of trying to prove anything to anybody.”

Despite the recent talk of their troubled marriage, Cruise and Holmes’ split still came as a shock to millions of fans, who took to Twitter to share how they felt. “Mimi Rogers 1956; Nicole Kidman 1967; Katie Holmes 1978 — my supercomputer analysis says Tom Cruise’s next wife was born in 1989,” said one, signed HAL_9000

This was Holmes’ first marriage and Cruise’s third. Cruise was previously married to American actress Mimi Rogers from 1987 to 1990 and Australian movie star Nicole Kidman from 1990 to 2001. From his decade long marriage to Kidman, Cruise has two adopted children, 19-year-old Isabella and 17-year-old Connor.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 2^nd, 2012.