- Tom Cruise is an actor, famous for films like Top Gun, Jerry Maguire, and Mission: Impossible.
- He’s been married to Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes.
Tom Cruise‘s love life has been closely followed for decades, ever since making his breakthrough in the 1983 classic Risky Business. His romantic history consists of three famous marriages (all of which ended, coincidentally, when his wives were 33 years old) and a string of other high-profile romances. But between 2012-2020, Tom seemingly pumped the brakes on public romances.
However, there was renewed interest in the love life of one of Hollywood’s most famous bachelors after a new report surfaced in December 2020. It claimed that Tom was dating his co-star Hayley Atwell from Mission: Impossible 7. In June 2022, another report came out that the pair broke up. In 2023, Tom reportedly moved on with model Elsina Khayrova. We have more information on that below — including Tom’s many other romances since the ’80s.
Melissa Gilbert
Melissa Gilbert, 59, who played Laura Ingalls on the NBC series Little House on the Prairie, claimed that she dated Tom in the early 1980’s. This was at the very beginning of his career! “Actually, when I dated him he was Tom Mapother still. It was when he first moved to Los Angeles and I think I was 16, maybe, or 17?,” Melissa said on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in 2017.
“I did not have sex with him,” Laura added. “We made out, but, honestly, there was no sex. He was a good kisser. But, you know, he was, like, a struggling, starving actor. I actually bought him his first set of dishes.” Melissa even reminisced on her friendship/past relationship with her fellow “Brat Pack” pal, Tom, in a throwback Instagram post shared in Oct. 2019.
Heather Locklear
Heather Locklear, 61, was never Tom’s girlfriend, but she did go on one (sort of) date with him. It didn’t go well, according to her recollection. The Melrose Place star explained in a 2013 interview on Chelsea Lately that they had both “auditioned for something” together, back when Tom “didn’t have friends” in Hollywood in the early ’80s. So, they went dancing.
“You know in ‘Risky Business’ where he does that dance in his underwear and does the splits? We were dancing at a club and he went into that. He starting doing the splits,” Heather said. “You just kind of stand there and don’t know what to do. Do you dance around him? So, I was like, ‘I’ll just sit down and you can.'”
“And that was the only date you had?,” Chelsea Handler then asked Heather, to which the actress said, “I think so.” Tom and Heather are pictured above together in 1981.
Rebecca De Mornay
Rebecca de Mornay and Tom played lovers in Tom’s breakthrough film, Risky Business, which came out in 1983. Their on-screen chemistry turned out to be real! Although Rebecca joked that Tom was “extremely annoying” at first, she admitted, “He came to grow on me because we wound up together for two and a half years after that film” in a 2018 interview with Celebrity Page.
Cher
Tom Cruise famously made Cher‘s “Top 5” lovers list, which she revealed on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in 2013. “I had just the greatest lovers ever. Not a long list. It’s just a good list,” the 77-year-old singer had said.
Cher explained how she and Tom connected in a separate interview. “A bunch of people who were dyslexic were invited to the White House, and Tom and I are both dyslexic. We didn’t go out till way later, but there definitely was a connection there,” Cher told the Mail on Sunday in 2018. She added, “Though I don’t get what he does, that whole Scientology thing. I can’t understand it so I just… don’t.”
Mimi Rogers
It was during this relationship that Tom infamously joined the Church of Scientology, which he is a prominent figure in to this day. When Tom met actress Mimi Rogers, 67, she had been a few years divorced from Scientologist Jim Rogers. “I met her at a dinner party about a year ago, when I was developing Top Gun. She was dating a friend, and, uh, I thought she was extremely bright,” Tom recalled in a 1986 interview with Rolling Stone.
However, Mimi had a conflicting story. “I wasn’t seeing anybody, he wasn’t seeing anybody, and they thought, ‘These people should be going out with somebody — let’s see if they want to go out with each other.’ And we said, ‘Aw, what the heck. OK’,” Mimi told the Sun Sentinel in 1987.
Tom sounded smitten in another Rolling Stone interview, which was published mere days before his split from Mimi was announced in 1990. “I’d never been in love before. Since I’ve been with her, it’s opened me up a lot. I think it’s helped me be a better actor. We live a lot of life together. We share everything,” he gushed, later adding, “I care about my wife more than anything in the world. She’s my best friend. I just really like being with her, you know? I love her.” The divorce was finalized in February 1990, three years after they got married.
Nicole Kidman
Tom Cruise moved on to his next marriage, which was with Moulin Rouge! star Nicole Kidman, 55. They met on the set of their movie Days of Thunder, in which they played lovers, in 1990. By the end of the year, they were husband and wife. Tom and Nicole adopted two children amid their 11-year marriage: Isabella in 1992, and Connor in 1994.
During the marriage, Tom and Nicole also filmed another movie together, Eyes Wide Shut, in 1999. Nicole even looked back at their time filming together in a rare interview in Oct. 2020, telling the New York Times, “We were happily married through that. We would go go-kart racing after those scenes. We’d rent out a place and go racing at three in the morning. I don’t know what else to say. Maybe I don’t have the ability to look back and dissect it. Or I’m not willing to.”
Nicole famously never joined Tom’s Church of Scientology, which even their children went on to be active members in. Tom and Nicole’s split was announced in Feb. 2001, and Tom filed for divorce two days later. To this day, the exes have minimal interactions with one another. “Tom has had little to no contact with Nicole in the 18 years since being married and that is fine by him,” a source close to Tom EXCLUSIVELY told HollywoodLife. “He really does not miss her much at all.”
Penélope Cruz
Tom took a break from the married life and started dating Penélope Cruz, 49, whom he met on the set of the movie Vanilla Sky in 2000. They enjoyed a three-year relationship, which the former couple’s reps confirmed ended in 2004. “They remain good friends and still talk often. There is no other person involved,” Penelope’s spokesperson told PEOPLE at the time.
Katie Holmes
Enter Katie Holmes, who to date remains one of Tom’s most famous exes. Ironically, Katie, 44, she once told Seventeen Magazine in 2004 that she “used to think that [she] was going to marry Tom Cruise,” which didn’t turn out to just be wishful thinking. The two came together the very next year.
Katie and Tom’s first public appearance as lovers happened in April of 2005. Tom was with the Dawson’s Creek star in Rome, where he was visiting to collect his David di Donatello Award for lifetime achievement. The very next month, Tom was jumping on Oprah Winfrey‘s couch and proclaiming that he’s “in love” (to which Oprah said, “The boy is gone”).
The relationship quickly advanced. When Katie stepped onto the Batman Begins premiere in June of 2005, the actress revealed that she’s converting to Scientology (Tom’s religion) and her engagement to Tom was announced that very same month. By October, the couple was expecting, and in April of 2006 they welcomed their first child together, a daughter named Suri.
Katie and Tom tied the knot in Italy in Nov. 2006, and all seemed happy until June of 2012, when Katie filed for divorce. A settlement for custody of Suri was decided on a month later. A year afterwards, Tom admitted that he “didn’t expect” that divorce in an interview with German television network ProSieben.
Katie reflected on the time after the divorce in an April 2020 interview with InStyle. “That time was intense. It was a lot of attention, and I had a little child on top of it. We had some funny moments out and about in public. So many people I didn’t know became my friends and helped us out, and that’s what I love about the city,” she said.
Hayley Atwell
Tom reportedly started dating Hayley Atwell — whom you may have seen playing Peggy Carter in the Captain America movies — in 2020, according to a report from The Sun that surfaced in Dec. of that year. Hayley and Tom filmed Mission 7: Impossible together amid the pandemic.
“Tom and Hayley hit it off from day one,” a source told The Sun, who added, “Lockdown, and all the difficulties that came with it, brought them even closer and they’ve become fairly inseparable.” Tom and Hayley did not confirm this report, but he hasn’t confirmed any romances since his marriage to Katie, and on June 12, 2022, it was reported he and Hayley had split. It was the second reported split since back in Sept. 2021, they reportedly also called it quits but reconciled a short time later.
“Tom and Hayley’s relationship was genuine,” a source told The Sun. “In spite of some rumours to the contrary, it was never just for the cameras. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked out for them. They get on really well, and have fantastic chemistry, which is why they decided to quietly give the relationship another try earlier this year.”
Elsina Khayrova
In mid-2023, multiple outlets reported that Tom had quietly started dating the model and socialite.
“They’re very happy,” a source told Us Weekly in December 2023. “And Tom’s extremely confident about it working out for the long term. Tom is going into 2024 totally energized, excited and feeling healthier and happier than he has in years. This is a very special time for him, and having a serious relationship in his life that he can build on is the icing on the cake.”