Here's the In Touch story Tom Cruise is suing Bauer Publications about.
TMZ has gotten ahold of the materials in Tom Cruise's lawsuit against Bauer Publishing, and has been doling out bits as if it's The Guardian and the documents are the Edward Snowden NSA leak.
Which if you're a Scientology obsessive, it sort of is.
Here's one headline: TOM CRUISE My Job's As Hard As FIGHTING IN AFGHANISTAN
And another: TOM CRUISE REPS ACCUSE KATIE OF SCREWING TOM OVER IN TABLOIDS
But the key TMZ post from Friday was one containing pages from Cruise's deposition. The document isn't complete, but the snippets offer insight into Cruise's hurt feelings about being accused by In Touch of abandoning Suri, his daughter with Katie Holmes; Cruise's lawyers possible tactics to discredit Bauer in the media; and what Cruise perceives as serial misunderstandings of how Scientology works, which he says is "understandable in that it is a minority religion." In one instance, Bauer's lawyer Elizabeth McNamara asks Cruise to talk about what a "suppressive person" is; in another, she asks whether Suri has "practiced Scientology" since the marital separation, a phrasing Cruise rejects. In general, Cruise seems good at steering conversations toward what he says Scientology doesn't do than what it does do.
They also go through how little Cruise actually did see Suri in between June 2012 when Holmes filed for divorce and Thanksgiving of that year (only for 10 days in total).
The whole thing is really worth reading. Update at 9:02 p.m. ET on 11/11 Radar Online posted the deposition a full day earlier than TMZ — and published more of it than TMZ. Even more worth reading! The transcript is embedded within this link.
But here's the exchange in which McNamara gets Cruise to admit that Holmes left him to get Suri out of Scientology.
Elizabeth McNamara: And do you believe it to be false that Ms. Holmes left you in part to protect Suri from Scientology?
Tom Cruise: Listen, I find that question offensive. I find it — those statements offensive. And like with any relationship, there are many different levels to it. You know, I — I find it very offensive. There is no need to protect my daughter from my religion.
McNamara: Okay. My question to you, and I apologize if you find it offensive. And, again, I repeat, I'm sorry we're here. I don't want to be here. My client doesn't want to be here. They don't think that this warrants litigation. But —
Cruise: I believe it does.
McNamara: I know you do, that's why we're here.
Cruise: Yes. Yes.
McNamara: But unfortunately, we are here and you have to answer the questions. And the question is whether you believe the published contentions that Katie Holmes left you in part to protect Suri from Scientology, whether those are false?
Cruise: Do I believe that?
McNamara: Do I believe — do you believe that that is a false statement?
Cruise: I believe it is a false statement.
McNamara: And Ms. Holmes has never indicated in any way that that was one of the reasons she left you?
Cruise: That is — that she left me because of?
McNamara: To protect Suri from Scientology.
Cruise: Did she say that? That was one of the assertions, yes.
Pretty dramatic.
