TomKat! Who would have thought it?

So TomKat (for those of you that don’t read Hello! or OK, that is Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes) are to divorce. For Tom it’s his third failure, for her only the first!

It has been, of course, only a matter of time, because Mr Cruise is a peculiar chap to say the least. From his marriage to his first fairly unknown wife Mimi Rogers through the time with Nicole Kidman when they were famously unable to have children and very publicly adopted two (they have both had children since, apparently naturally and without any intervention, which seems a bit of an omen, don’t you think?) to his baptism into the Church of Scientology and the jumping up and down on Oprah’s sofa, Tom has been strange for quite a while. Nevertheless, he is the highest paid actor in Hollywood. Unbelievable, but there you are.

Ms Holmes is not a lot better by some accounts, but at least she doesn’t appear to have been converted to the batty ‘religion’ her hubby follows. And if the rumour mill is to be believed, it was Tom’s wish to send their small daughter, Suri, on a cruise with a load of other Scientologists to indoctrinate her in the beliefs that has forced Katie’s hand. I don’t know a great deal about Scientology, but I gather that Scientologist parents send their children as young as five on these cruises, alone and without any of the sort of the pastoral care with which they are familiar, to drum into their malleable and accepting brains the very odd beliefs they follow. That, in my view, is almost child abuse. Most definitely it is mental manipulation of vulnerable minors, and should not be allowed.

If the rumours are true and it all goes terribly wrong for him, this could be the end of Tom Cruise as a major megastar, which he undoubtedly is at the moment. Certainly it will fuel the gossip columns for months. If the rumours about the more malign aspects of the Scientology influences are proven, he will be dropped by Hollywood quicker than you can say Mission Impossible. Offences with drink, drugs or even unfortunate sexual encounters can be quickly forgotten and forgiven in Tinseltown, but peculiar religious beliefs, racism and mistreatment of children remain big taboos, and rightly so.

Katie, on the other hand, could well see her star in the ascendant, being painted at the moment as the caring mother and wounded party. She is still young, pretty, admittedly with only moderate talent but is extremely shrewd and Daddy is a divorce lawyer. There is no information in the gossip columns about whether she signed a pre-nup, with differing gossip being propounded as fact, but whatever she did six years ago when they married she will now do well out of this. If nothing else she could sell her and Suri’s clothing hordes, the value of which runs into millions.

Katie once was quoted as saying that as a child, she had a poster of Cruise on her bedroom wall and vowed one day that she would marry him. That is the sort of girlish infatuation that many teenagers have (I had a poster of David Cassidy on my wall, and was determined for a while to be Mrs Cassidy) but most of us grow out of it and realise that really that is rather silly ambition and actually, all things considered, John next door is a better bet. The fact that she followed through on her girlish aims and realised her prize shows a steely determination and possibly a slightly immature view of the world which could be a deadly combination when it comes to haggling over a multi million pound divorce settlement and child custody. Apparently Tom paid Nicole Kidman, who hadn’t signed a pre-nup with him, $340 million and he will no doubt be anxious not to have to write out a similar cheque this time. And Katie has moved to New York where she thinks she will get a better deal.

It is always sad when a marriage ends, particularly when there are children, but sometimes it is for the best and it would appear that this may be one of those occasions. Only time will tell of course, and it may be that Ms Holmes is a clever media manipulator and that she is the bad cop all the time, but I doubt it is that simple. Most probably, there are faults on either side; after all Katie knew about her husband’s beliefs when she married him so why, you might ask, start carping now?

Whatever happens, I will be as curious as anyone. There is something very satisfying about being a voyeur into the lives of the rich and famous, particularly when it is all going tits up, which somehow makes us feel better about our own mundane existence and we know that under all the glitz, they are just like us. Just with more money and the time to indulge in slightly odder habits. Watch this space!