(Photo: Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Nickelodeon)
It’s no secret that Tom Cruise’s image has taken a beating in recent months, so much so that his publicity team has been on 24/7 damage control mode. Days after a reporter from Vanity Fair exposed Cruise’s alleged “audition” of Iranian actress Nazanin Boniadi to be his wife, the same muckraker writes that the all-powerful Church of Scientology used the religion to turn Tom’s kids Connor Cruise and Isabella Cruise against their adoptive mother, Nicole Kidman.
Here’s how it supposedly went down: after Kidman’s ugly divorce from Tom in 2001, the Church brainwashed Connor, now 17, and his sister into believing Kidman was a “toxic person,” labeled by the Church as a “Suppressive Person” and someone to be avoided at all costs.
“They rejected Nicole, they’ve been instructed,” says John Brousseau, who was a Scientologist for 32 years and formerly the bodyguard and brother-in-law to church leader David Miscavige. “[Bella and Connor] whispered to me, ‘J.B., Nicole is an S.P.! Our mom’s an S.P. We hate going and seeing her.’”
Kidman herself admitted after her ex married Katie Holmes that her children called her “Nicole” and referred to Katie as “mom.” Connor, an aspiring DJ, has been frequently photographed with his famous father but almost never with Kidman.
As for Tom’s most recent ex Katie, she proved she’s no longer the mousy brunette Joey Potter any longer by executing a ninja-like break from Cruise and his entire Scientology universe with her limbs, and child, intact. And, similar to her predecessor Nicole, Holmes’ career started booming pretty much the instant she stepped out of Tom’s shadow.
As for Connor, the good-looking teen is sticking by his old man for now.
