Friday, June 12, 2026

Tom Cruise, New York Politician: Mission Impossible

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Tom Cruise and his Scientology buddies must be upset this morning. They’ve lost their political supporter in New York City.

Disgraced state senator Hiram Monserrate lost a special election yesterday to Queens Assemblyman Jose Peralta.

Monserrate was kicked out of the State Senate after being convicted on misdemeanor charges for slashing his girlfriend’s face with a glass.

As a city councilman in 2007, Monserrate drew criticism for creating an L. Ron Hubbard Day in honor of the science-fiction writer who invented Scientology. Despite the New York City Fire Department’s objections, the corpulent loser supported Tom Cruise’s “detox” plan for firemen who’d been in the World Trade Center disaster. He appeared with Cruise at a 2007 fundraiser.

Monserrate went so far as to say he’d actually tried the Scientology “purification” and that it worked for him.

In December 2008 Monserrate was charged with slashing with his girlfriend’s face with a glass. The following October he was convicted of a misdemeanor for recklessness.He tried to keep his seat in the state senate, but the mission proved impossible.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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