Daily Times

CHER — they would’ve been a hard couple to miss, such as when they ran into each other in 2002 at the 1st Annual Entertainment Industry Foundation “Love Rocks” Concert, but it wasn’t until around 2008 that the entertainment icon opened up about her mid-’80s fling with Cruise. “I was crazy about him,” Cher told Oprah Winfrey in 2008. Reminiscent of what De Mornay said about him being an innocent, the singer recalled, “He was shy. He said he felt like such a boob in school and nobody talked to him. We went on a date once for dinner in a New York restaurant and the waitress was from his old school. He told me she never talked to him back in school, but now he was recognised he got all her attention. It could have been a great big romance because I was crazy for him.” On Watch What Happens Live! in 2013, Cher said Cruise definitely made her “top five” list of lovers in life. “It was a long, long time ago and neither one of us ever talked about it and I don’t know why,” she told Andy Cohen. “When we were together he was such a private person. He always has been until lately. He didn’t mention it and I didn’t mention it. I loved him though, he was amazing.”

NICOLE KIDMAN – after meeting during casting of the racing drama ‘Days of Thunder’, he proposed as soon as his divorce from Mimi Rogers was finalised, and the Australian actress married Cruise on Christmas Eve in 1990. “He basically swept me off my feet,” Kidman recalled to Vanity Fair in 2002. “I fell madly, passionately in love. And as happens when you fall in love, my whole plan in terms of what I wanted for my life—I was like, ‘Forget it. This is it.’ I was consumed by it, willingly. And I was desperate to have a baby with him. I didn’t care if we were married. That’s what I wish I’d done.” They adopted two children, Isabella and Connor, and starred in two more films together, the period epic ‘Far & Away’ and the erotic thriller ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, which they admitted later was an extremely intense shoot, made all the more devastating by director Stanley Kubrick’s death before the film was finished. They also weathered the dooziest of rumours, from one that they were both gay and the marriage was a cover to a report that they needed a coach for the scenes in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’. “Our marriage is stronger because of it. And our friendship is deeper,” Cruise said about their ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ experience. “All I can say is that I hope we are together when we are 80,” Kidman told Talk in 2000. “I can’t say we will be, but I will be so devastated if we are not.” So consider her blindsided by the timing when Cruise filed for divorce. “Citing the difficulties inherent in diverging careers which constantly kept them apart, they concluded that an amicable separation seemed best for both of them at this time,” their longtime rep said on February 5, 2001, in announcing the split. Even then, Kidman’s lack of attachment to Scientology and her reluctance to raise their kids that way was named as a major factor in their split. Connor and Isabella were still Scientologists as of at least 2013. Asked why their marriage ended, Cruise told Vanity Fair in October 2001, “She knows why, and I know why. She’s the mother of my children, and I wish her well. And I think that you just move on. And I don’t say that lightly. I don’t say that with anything. Things happen in life, and you do everything you can, and in every possible way, and there’s a point at which you just sometimes have to face the brutal reality.”

PENÉLOPE CRUZ – after meeting on the set of 2001’s trippy ‘Vanilla Sky’, the Spanish actress dated Cruise for three years, though they were apart a majority of the time for work. They made their public debut as a couple at the August 2001 premiere of Cruz’s film Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. “He came and shared it with me,” she said on ‘Good Morning America’ soon after. “It was special for me that he wanted to share it with me that way.” Cruise was married when they were shooting Vanilla Sky, but Cruz insisted they didn’t get together until later. “There’s nothing to hide and it’s a good thing,” she said. “I’m very, very happy with my relationship,” Cruise had told People in the summer of 2003, also denying that they were engaged.