It’s been years since Tom Cruise, 56, has taken a photo with his daughter Suri, 12. Their separation now almost spans a reported five years. With recent news that the Mission Impossible Actor can reportedly see Suri 10 days a month, we now wonder: Why doesn’t he? It’s supposedly because his ex-wife and the mother to Suri, Katie Holmes, 39, is “not a Scientologist,” the Us Weekly report claimed. But there’s very likely more to it, HollywoodLife has now learned! We chatted with Rick Ross, founder of The Cult Education Institute, who has been qualified and accepted as a court expert on Scientology by courts in two custody cases in Arizona and Washington D.C. Now, the man who has helped thousands of families and consulted on networks like CBS and CBC explained a sound reason why he believes Tom chooses not to visit his daughter, which Ross agrees is a “common practice” for Scientologists.
“What happens in Scientology is that they have a category of people which they call Suppressive Persons or SPs. Scientologists are taught to avoid being around Suppressive Persons or SPs,” Ross explained to HL. Tom addressed SPs himself, which you can watch in the video below! “A person who hangs around an SP is often regarded as a Potential Trouble Source or PTS. And Scientologists are asked questions when they go through spiritual counseling, called auditing, about perhaps encountering people in their life who are SPs. They are asked questions to identify who are the SPs in their life and who might be a PTS,” the cult expert continued. “If someone is designated as an SP there is a disconnection policy in Scientology where you actually disconnect from that person.”
And the “disconnection policy” is as literal as it sounds. After the label is assigned, a Scientologist will “avoid” that SP-designated person. But what happens when a Scientologist decides to leave the church…and their partner hasn’t? “So if you are a Scientologist and you are married to someone who decides to leave Scientology or they’re not interested in Scientology — which would be Katie Holmes, Nicole Kidman, Mimi Rogers — all Tom Cruise’s ex-wives. Each one either left or stopped taking courses with Scientology and indicated that they were no longer interested. Tom Cruise is in a position now, where he likely views and Scientology likely views Katie Holmes as an SP,” Ross explained, which falls in line with recent reports. “Certainly there was talk that Nicole Kidman was considered an SP by her adopted children.”
“Nicole’s relationship with Connor and Isabella has been a very strained relationship because Tom Cruise had primary custody and he sent those kids to the Delphian School which is a Scientology school. And now Connor is living in Clearwater, Florida which is a headquarters of Scientology and many people say he is being immersed in Scientology.” And as of 2016, Isabella revealed that she “of course” still talks to Nicole and Tom, she told Daily Mail Online. Ross then suggested that Katie wished to avoid Nicole’s situation. “I think that she came to her conclusion about what she wanted to do regarding her own child, Suri Cruise, based on what she observed,” Ross said of Katie, who filed for divorce in 2012 after nearly six years of marriage. “What [Katie] did was she filed for divorce while Tom was on location shooting a film and relatively isolated,” Ross told us. Tom was filming the sci-fi movie Oblivion in Iceland when it went down.
Flash forward to 2018, and Ross broke down what Tom may fear today. “But [Katie] has control I believe over [Suri’s] medical care and over the education of Suri Cruise, so for Tom Cruise to have a visit with his daughter Suri Cruise, he needs to come in contact with Katie Holmes and if she has been declared a Suppressive Person, which I think is very likely, then that Suri Cruise would be seen as a PTS,” Ross revealed. “Tom Cruise would not want to come in contact with an SP. And if he views his daughter as a PTS, which is very likely, he would not be that excited about dealing with her either.”
Tom’s situation is not unique. Ross has seen Scientology create many estranged families. He’s received heartbreaking calls from parents whose kids refuse to see them because they’re considered an SP or a PTS. “I’ve seen the reverse that an adult child or a very young person leaves Scientology and their family that remains in Scientology will have nothing to do with them they won’t visit them, they won’t talk to them, nothing,” Ross shared. “So, this fits a pattern with what is happening with Tom Cruise, if the stories are true that he hasn’t seen Suri Cruise for a really long time. It’s because in my opinion, he is very strongly influenced by Scientology and through that lens of their doctrine, he subordinates his daughter to the claims of Scientology doctrine, which is that most likely Katie Holmes has been declared an SP and his daughter, by virtue of her interaction with an SP, is considered a PTS.”
So, what are the chances of Tom breaking from Scientology’s doctrine-dictated rules? “There is a 100% predictable outcome that you [an active Scientologist] are not going to have anything to do with them. And Tom Cruise has talked about this himself. If you go online and you see that one video of him ranting about Scientology he talks about SPs.” If you haven’t already, watch the interview above, which jumps to Tom’s discussion about SPs.
At the end of our chat with Ross, the cult expert explained what he views is the purpose of SP and PTS labels. “They use the label of SP in their disconnection policy that revolves around being designated an SP as a means of controlling people and controlling their access to other people, their associations, their ability to discuss Scientology with those people. They don’t want that.”