Among the hundreds of students, friends and family members gathered for LaGuardia High School’s Class of 2024 graduation ceremony were two very familiar faces.
Suri Cruise, beaming in a bright red cap and gown, celebrated the milestone alongside her fellow graduates outside New York City’s United Palace Theater on Friday, June 21.
“Suri couldn’t stop smiling,” a witness exclusively tells In Touch, while her mom, Katie Holmes, “looked so proud, standing by her side and posing for photos.”
But her movie-star father, Tom Cruise, was a no-show. Instead, the A-list actor, 61, was spotted the next day attending Taylor Swift’s concert in London. “He was trading friendship bracelets with superfans and dancing to ‘Shake It Off’ in a crowd filled with young ladies who were around his daughter’s age. This after skipping Suri’s graduation — it’s like he’s living a double life,” says a source.
And while the 18-year-old has dropped her famous last name and now goes by Suri Noelle, “the truth is,” says an insider, “for the last 11 years, Tom has chosen not to see Suri.” (In May, Suri’s name was listed the same way on a casting sheet for her school’s theater production of Head Over Heels.)
Now that Suri is legally an adult, Tom no longer has to go through Katie, 45, to contact Suri. Yet he still hasn’t reached out to her, says the insider, and fans are wondering: Why doesn’t Tom love Suri?
Fans of the actor have struggled to reconcile the two images of Tom: one as the beloved Top Gun star who continues to command the box office, the other as an “evil father,” as some have labeled him.
“On the one hand, he has charmed his way into our minds with his excellent choices in films,” one online commenter wrote in 2023. “On the other hand, there is no excuse whatsoever for denying your child your love.”
That’s something he once swore he’d never do. “My whole life I always wanted to be a father,” Tom told Vanity Fair in 2006. “I always said to myself that my children would be able to depend on me, and I would always be there for them and love them — that I’d never make a promise to my kids that I couldn’t keep.”
However, years later in June 2012, the Dawson’s Creek actress filed for divorce from Tom. Katie maintained primary custody and the Mission Impossible star had visitation rights. After a few sporadic meet-ups, including the last time they were photographed together in April 2013, Tom last saw Suri — who had a broken arm at the time — in September 2013, says the insider.
While there was no legal reason for him not to see her again, his time with Suri appeared to significantly decrease after that — they haven’t been photographed together in years.
“It was entirely Tom’s decision not to see Suri,” says the insider. (Meanwhile, Tom is in contact with his kids from his marriage to Nicole Kidman, Bella, 31 and Connor, 29, who belong to his religion.)
Sources have long blamed his faith. “Tom has proven over and over again that his No. 1 loyalty is to [his religion] and David Miscavige,” Tony Ortega, an expert on Tom’s faith, tells In Touch.
As the years passed, the expert continues, “it became more and more obvious Tom had completely cut Suri out of his life. And frankly, Suri may be better off for it.”