Tragic Details About Tom Cruise's Kids

The following article mentions allegations of child abuse and domestic abuse.

On the surface, Tom Cruise seems like a stand-up guy. He makes an effort for fans, strictly adhered to COVID-19 protocols, and returned his Golden Globes to protest the HFPA's lack of diversity. But Hollywood stars, like the rest of us, can be incredibly messy people. As such, even apparent nice guys like Tom Cruise can turn out to be divisive and controversial figures. And that mess, it seems, got passed down to his kids.

Cruise has three children: Bella and Connor Cruise, whom he shared with Nicole Kidman, and Suri Noelle, his only child with Katie Holmes. "My whole life I always wanted to be a father," Cruise told Vanity Fair 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 ... 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." Not all his kids would agree with that statement, however. 

The actor's children have led troubled and complicated lives. From bitter family feuds to career struggles and beyond, here are tragic details about Tom Cruise's kids.

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's relationship started out as a Hollywood fairytale. The A-listers adopted two children: a daughter, Isabella Cruise (known as "Bella"), and a son, Connor Cruise, in 1992 and 1995 respectively. "I just believe, for whatever reason, that these children were meant to be in our family," Kidman told Vanity Fair shortly after adopting Connor.

But the picture-perfect marriage didn't last, and Tom filed for divorce in 2001. Bella and Connor were just 8 and 6 when their parents called it quits, a sad situation compounded by the ugliness that would follow. In court documents (via the Daily Mail), Kidman claimed that Tom left her completely blindsided, and she begged him not to leave her. "It took me a very long time to heal," she later told DuJour. "It was a shock to my system."

Initially, it was reported that the couple would share custody of their young children. However, it has since materialized that the children remained in Cruise's care, where they were home-schooled and allegedly lived under the strict doctrine of Scientology. At one point, the kids were offered a maternal figure in the form of Tom's supposed girlfriend at the time, Nazanin Boniadi. However, as a source claimed to Vanity Fair in 2012, Boniadi's relationship with Cruise never really got off the ground. Cruise eventually iced her out and she disappeared from the children's lives. According to the source, Connor and Bella wondered when she would be coming back.

In 2019, it was revealed that Bella Cruise had become a Scientology auditor. According to the Church of Scientology, an auditor enables prospective adherents of the religion to reach their full potential through "helping the individual rid himself of any spiritual disabilities and (2) increasing individual abilities." It's a practice that has been subject to intense criticism, with former members alleging that auditing is a means of extracting thousands of dollars from individuals, while offering them false promises of spiritual enlightenment.

Before becoming an auditor, Cruise suffered from a series of personal issues. But undergoing an intense auditing course apparently helped relieve her of her inner turmoil. "I would have drowned in my own problems if you hadn't been there to sup me or get me through the preliminaries," she wrote in an email obtained by The Underground Bunker. "And every other single person from the C/S to the Qualifications Sec, who has taken even just a minute of time to help me get through." It's unclear what these personal problems were, but it was previously claimed that she was keen to escape the trappings of Hollywood.

She described undergoing drillings and corrections, which she declared were just what she needed. "Now that she's trained as an auditor, she'll be able to do the questioning involved in auditing," Tony Ortega, who runs The Underground Bunker, told The Sun, "which means, she'll be helping others plumb the depths of their pasts to discover the secrets that are holding them back."

For all the perks and privileges it entails, it's not easy being the offspring of a Hollywood superstar. For many years, Bella Cruise's famous surname was a burden rather than a boon. Subsequently, she found herself meandering through life as she struggled to forge a career of her own. "Bella is lost," a source told the Daily Mail in 2015. "She's not pretty enough to be an actress and not smart enough to go to college and get a real job. It's the same with Connor, who travels the world partying and DJ-ing."

At one point, it did appear as though things were looking up for Cruise. Following her father's marriage to Katie Holmes, she was given a job with Holmes' clothing brand, Holmes and Yang. The two women reportedly got along, with Cruise referring to her dad's new partner as her "mom." However, in 2012, she was axed seemingly without warning. "She was fired out of the blue, and once Katie filed for divorce, it all made sense," an insider told The Hollywood Reporter. "This was a carefully planned ambush. Katie didn't want Bella working for her anymore because she was Tom's kid." Two years later, she reportedly began working as a hairdresser in London after undertaking a £15,000 (around $19,600) training course.

In 2015, Bella Cruise married her British partner, Max Parker, in London, a city that the Hollywood progeny now calls home. But her famous parents were nowhere in sight. Although Tom Cruise reportedly paid for his daughter's Scientology wedding, he made the difficult decision not to attend out of fears that doing so would result in a media frenzy.

Likewise, Nicole Kidman, despite being in London at the time, was also a no-show at her daughter's nuptials. Initially, there were claims that a rift between mother and daughter prevented Kidman from being there on Bella's special day. In fact, a source told Page Six that Kidman wasn't even aware that her daughter was getting married. "The wedding was a Scientology ceremony," the source claimed. "Nicole wasn't there — she didn't even know about it at all."

However, an insider told the Daily Mail that this was not the case. "Nicole was actually involved with the wedding preparations and she did have a private dinner with Bella and Max," they said. "But she didn't go to the ceremony. Also, the animosity between Tom and Nicole was probably a factor." In her own interview with the Daily Mail, Bella admitted that she found it difficult getting married without her father walking her down the aisle. She also denied claims of a feud with her mother, revealing that they chat regularly.

Nicole Kidman and her second husband, Keith Urban, have two daughters together, but one would be forgiven for forgetting that Kidman also has children with Tom Cruise. That's because Kidman was allegedly pushed out of Bella and Connor Cruise's lives. "She worries that they've drifted to a point where she'll be lucky if she'll ever get to see them," a source told Heat in 2024. "It would help if Tom were to encourage it, but that's not likely." According to Scientology whistleblowers, this has all been orchestrated by Tom, who allegedly brainwashed his children against their mother.

In Scientology, there is nothing worse than being a so-called "suppressive person," i.e., someone who is deemed an enemy of the church. Towards the end of his marriage to Kidman, Tom allegedly branded Kidman an S.P. and turned his kids against her. "They rejected Nicole—they've been instructed," ex-Scientologist John Brousseau told Vanity Fair in 2012. "They took a course, P.T.S./S.P., Potential Trouble Source/Suppressive Person, for persons connected in their lives who are an S.P. They whispered to me, 'J.B., Nicole is an S.P.! Our mom's an S.P.—we hate going and seeing her.'"

Tommy Davis, head of the church's Celebrity Centre, allegedly made the children believe that Kidman was a sociopath. "After a while they believed him," ex-Scientologist Marty Rathbun told The Hollywood Reporter. "They had daily sessions with Tommy. I was there. I saw it." An attorney representing the church denied Davis' claims. 

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's only son, Connor Cruise, is all grown up now and free to follow his own destiny. Or is he? Having been raised by their father, Connor and Bella Cruise grew up following the doctrine of Scientology. According to Scientology dissenters, Connor is being groomed by the church in the hopes that he, much like his dad, will someday hold a senior position within the organization.

Speaking to Radar in 2018, ex-Scientologist Katrina Reyes claimed that the church became more heavily involved in Connor's life as punishment for his rebellious antics. Accordingly, he was apparently housed in Scientology hotel The Sandcastle where a watchful eye could be kept on him. "The only reason I've ever seen it happen before with someone like Connor is that he did something he wasn't supposed to do, like interacting with every day people, having ideas or regular thoughts of doing what he wants," Reyes said, adding that the church was using Connor as a "pawn."

Since then, Tom and his fellow Scientologists have allegedly exerted greater control over Connor's life. As with Bella's wedding, Kidman was a no-show when Connor got married in 2019. According to insiders who spoke to Radar, Tom banned his ex-wife from attending her son's nuptials. "Tom is behind this and what he wants is as good as law," an insider said. "Tom made the call and Connor followed ... Connor worships the ground his father walks on and would never disobey Tom."

There are so many strange things that everyone ignores about Tom Cruise. And when he and Katie Holmes welcomed their child, Suri Noelle, in 2006, things were about to get even stranger. In her book "Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology," actor and former Scientologist Leah Remini alleged Noelle was neglected as a baby.

Back when she was a member of the church, Remini attended Cruise and Holmes' wedding rehearsal dinner, when she made a disturbing discovery. At one point in the evening, she allegedly saw the couple's 7-month-old baby left crying on a bathroom floor. "When I opened the door, I found three women, including Tom's sister and his assistant, standing over the baby, who was lying on the tile floor," she wrote. "Rather than talking to her in a soothing voice, they kept saying, 'Suri! Suri!' in a tone that sounded like they were telling an adult to get her s*** together." Distraught at what she witnessed, Remini yelled at the women to help Noelle, before heating up a bottle to feed the hungry infant.

But such alleged behavior would apparently be extreme even for adherents of the controversial religion. "They believe that children are spiritual beings and that they can handle a lot of responsibility," former Scientologist Lori Hodgson told Inside Edition. "But I've never heard of that at such a young age as an infant." The church denied Remini's claims, dismissing her as "a bitter ex-Scientologist."

Katie Holmes has always had a protective relationship over her daughter, Suri Noelle. This vigilance was presumably spurred by the ordeal she and Noelle endured after leaving Tom Cruise. In a move that apparently shocked Cruise, Holmes filed for divorce in 2012 and sought sole custody of their daughter. Cruise was allegedly manipulative and controlling during the couple's marriage, apparently resulting in Holmes losing all sense of identity.

Following the divorce, there were reports that Holmes and Noelle were unable to leave their home due to harassment by Scientologists. According to TMZ, Holmes believed that she was being tailed by agents hired by the church, though the organization denied this. The actor became particularly concerned when she noticed that a group of men had parked outside her home, snapping photos in an apparent stakeout. Accordingly, she feared that there were plans to kidnap her daughter in retaliation for her seeking sole custody. "Katie saw all the pressure. They [Scientologists] are professionals at pressuring people to be quiet," a friend told the New York Post. "That's why she did this [filed for divorce] in secret." Cruise's rep denied that he hired the men to harass Holmes and Noelle.

It was a traumatic period for the mother and daughter duo. "That time was intense," Holmes told InStyle. Sources revealed to Us Weekly that, amid their trauma, Holmes and Noelle had saved each other.

From the outset of her relationship with Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes allegedly expressed concerns over Scientology's treatment of his children. According to sources who spoke to TMZ, Holmes had witnessed members of the church subjecting Bella and Connor Cruise to a form of interrogation known as "sec checking," and feared that Suri Noelle would also endure the ritual. Sec checks have been likened to psychological terrorism; the process entails an intrusive line of questioning apparently designed to extract dirt on the subject's parents. Given her siblings' loyalty to their dad and, by extension, Scientology, Noelle has nothing to do with Bella and Connor.

In 2024, the Daily Mail reported that Noelle had gone no contact with her siblings, who had apparently attempted to get in touch multiple times. There once was a time when Noelle was close with Connor in particular, but their relationship soon broke down. "They haven't had contact in a decade and there are several reasons why," an insider divulged. "First and foremost is the church of Scientology. Suri's father and brother do not associate with her because of their devotion to the church, so why would she have a relationship with her siblings?"

As the child of former Hollywood power couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Suri Noelle became a target of the paparazzi at an alarmingly young age. In 2013, when Noelle was just 7, she was verbally abused by a paparazzo who had been stalking her and Holmes. "We're trying to get to the car! Stop it!" Noelle pleaded with the photographer as she and her mother were out in New York, per ABC News. The photographer replied, "Bye Suri, you little brat!" When confronted by fellow paps, they repeated that Noelle was a brat.

The disturbing moment led to condemnation of the callous treatment of celeb kids. "Often times people think that because a parent has decided to be a celebrity that the child is fair game," psychotherapist Stacy Kaiser told ABC News. "Children need to be children, and they can be deeply damaged with something as simple as paparazzi yelling a bad word at them."

This was no isolated incident, with Noelle routinely swarmed by paparazzi as a child. The stalking got so bad that Holmes and Noelle were essentially confined to their home during the day. "We'd go to the park at 6 a.m. just to get outside," Holmes told InStyle. Speaking to Glamour in 2023, Holmes explained that the relentless intrusion led to her becoming fiercely protective over her daughter. "What has been really important for me with my daughter, because she was so visible at a young age, is I really like to protect her," she said.

Though Katie Holmes and Suri Noelle's ability to free themselves from Scientology was a rare exception, they are still viewed as enemies within the eyes of the church. "According to Scientology doctrine, Katie has denied Suri her spiritual eternity in the church," former Scientologist Samantha Domingo told Vanity Fair in 2012. "There's no chance for her now."

Accordingly, Noelle reportedly has no relationship with Tom Cruise, who has missed so many major milestones in his daughter's life. In fact, Cruise reportedly hasn't seen his daughter since 2012, with Holmes intent on safeguarding her daughter. "Suri will not have any contact with her father, despite being 18, and even if he called, she would not answer," a source told the Daily Mail. "He does not exist to Katie or Suri, and his daughter does not want to rely on him for anything. She feels that she has one parent and that is her mother." In 2024, she changed her name from "Suri Cruise" to "Suri Noelle," with her new surname being a tribute to her mother (Holmes' middle name is Noelle).

Though Noelle has been away from Scientology for over a decade, Leah Remini has warned that Holmes must do everything in her power to continue to protect her daughter. "I'm sure [Cruise's] master plan is to wait until Suri gets older so he can lure her into Scientology and away from her mother," she told the Daily Mail in 2024.

If you or anyone you know may be the victim of child abuse or domestic abuse, contact the relevant resources below:

• The Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

• The National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.