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Well, it’s quite fascinating: Graydon Carter, never afraid of a bold move, has dumped Tom Cruise from the Hollywood elite. In the new issue of Vanity Fair, Carter has published a cover story by Maureen Orth exposing Tom Cruise’s entire background in Scientology. The magazine has used a pick-up picture — very very rare for them– of Katie Holmes on the cover to sell issues, just like People or Us Weekly. The party, my friends, is over.
By doing this, Carter slams right into friends at CAA, the agency that represents Tom. He also essentially ends any relationship with Cruise. Since I’m not able yet to read the entire story–and won’t be until tonight–I am only going by the teaser on the Vanity Fair home page and by comments made on the blog belonging to former Scientologist and very active outside revealer Marty Rathbun. It doesn’t look good, that’s for sure.
Here’s a link to one of my original stories from FoxNews.com, 2005. I notice Fox has erased my byline. Ah well. Anyway:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160192,00.html
VF and Orth, probably through Rathbun, have played a devasating card in the Cruise-Scientology story. They’ve gotten a 33 year old actress named Nazanin Boniadi, a real beauty with a lilting English accent, to tell how she was auditioned as a possible wife for Cruise in 2004. Boniadi, who later got a lot of TV work, was an ambitious Scientology student from 2000 to 2003. She worked her way up to “OT5”–Operating Thetan, level 5– in short order. She was being fast tracked to be a big celebrity Scientologist.
It may be that Boniadi has left Scientology now as she is very friendly with another escapee, director Paul Haggis, as well. But her story from 2004 tracks with stories I wrote the following year about women being auditioned to be Mrs. Cruise. Jennifer Garner, Scarlett Johnansson, and Kate Bosworth were on that list.
Katie Holmes, the youngest and most vulnerable, wound up the “winner.” I reported then exclusively that she left New York for a meeting with Cruise on “Mission Impossible 3” around April 12, 2005 and was not seen or heard from again for 16 days until she turned up in Rome as the love of Tom Cruise’s life. The situation progressed quickly from there. Katie cut off all her ties to friends and business associates. She became pregnant with Suri and married Cruise. And then it all fell apart quickly this past spring, seven years later.
On Sunday evening, once I’ve read Orth’s piece, I’ll address other issues. But for now, just the notion that Vanity Fair–once very friendly to Cruise–has pulled the trigger is fascinating and brave of Carter. He senses that Cruise is “done” in Hollywood anyway. His power has been sapped by Holmes’s sneak attack this summer–a divorce in 11 days–unheard of.
And it’s not just CAA that Carter is toying with. It’s also Cruise’s legendary pit bull attorney Bert Fields. Because for Vanity Fair to take this on brings the discussion to a higher level than when it’s been in a tabloid. It’s also going to make it nearly a mission impossible for Cruise to publicity for his next film at Christmas without all of this being a major issue. Cruise may now have a seat next to Mel Gibson in Hollywood’s permanant penalty box.
Meanwhile, Boniadi remains fascinating, too. The Iranian born actress makes no mention of her deep (former?) association with Scientology on her website. It’s all about her work with Amnesty International now. Raw ambition in Hollywood–it’s the stuff of Jackie Collins novels. In fact, if I were my pal Jackie, I’d be typing right now as fast as I could. The rise of Naz Boniadi is a classic.
More tonight…
