Tom Cruise: Kate and Suri are “strong willed,” “determined”


Last week Hello! Magazine in the UK featured some quotes from Tom Cruise about the state of his marriage two years on. He said “And they said it wouldn’t last. I guess we proved them wrong, didn’t we?”

This latest Hello! has more words of wisdom from the 46 year-old 5’7″ screen star in an exclusive interview. The quotes he gives about Suri refusing to wear pants have already been reported as he either said the same thing to Entertainment Tonight, or they’re quoting the Hello! Interview, but there’s some additional interesting information about how he views his daughter and wife, along with his relationship with the media.

The Daily Mail has some of these quotes, but they’re taking them from Grazia. Either Grazia just switched Cruise’s statements around a little and reprinted them from Hello! or Cruise repeated himself to them. Hello! changed some of his words to Brit-speak too: (update: it was at a press conference, see below.)

On Katie and Suri both being “determined”
“Suri’s very much like her mother. She’s open and sunny, just like her Mom is, but she’s also very determined. She’s very much a girl, and she will not wear trousers, for instance, only dresses. I put a pair of trousers on her and turn and leave the room, and straight away the trousers are off and a dress is on instead.”

On Suri saying sneakers are “boy shoes”
“She also has opinions about shoes. The other day, Kate showed her some gold-coloured sneakers – you know those gold sneakers that little girls have these days? – thinking she might like to wear them, and she looked at them and said, ‘Oh Mommy, these are lovely but… they’re boy shoes.’ She’s sweet but she’s very strong-willed – just like her mother.

On Kate being such a great mother
“Kate’s a wonderful mother, very calm and very loving. She’s a woman who’s sure of herself, confident and strong. She’s incredibly wise as well as being a very gracious and elegant person. I adore her.

“Well, we all know how I feel about Kate, right?”

On the media backlash at their whirlwind romance
“I guess I did court her kind of aggressively. There were things I did at the time that I look back and think, ‘Well, okay, I could have handled a couple of moments of that a little better.’ But I was surprised at some of the things that were said about me at the time. It all escalated until it got to the point where I’d hear another piece of gossip about me, and think, ‘Whaaaat? It can’t get worse than this.’ It affected us all, and as a father and a husband you want to protect your family. You want to be able to say to them, ‘Look, you don’t have to worry about anything. It’s all going to be all right.'”

On Kate being a “strong woman”
“Kate is such a strong woman, her entire family are incredible people, and certainly so are my children, Isabella and Connor.”

Tom goes on to talk about how it was when Suri was born and how it wasn’t as stressful for him because he knew the drill from Isabella and Connor. He says “I’m much more relaxed with Suri.”

Claims Suri doesn’t “have to deal with” fame
“She doesn’t have to deal with it.” [Talking about the Forbes story ranking her top baby] “When we’re not working we lead a very normal life with her, with friends over and ordinary stuff. You want to protect your children, but you don’t want to bring them up to be afraid of people. Suri’s a very open and warm child, and we want to preserve that, which we’re doing by giving her a lot of love. All she knows is that she is number one to Kate and me. And that’s all that matters.

[From Hello! Magazine, print edition, December 2, 2008. Commentary and subtitles are our own]

How many different ways can Tom say that Katie gets her way? Why doesn’t he just call her a stubborn pain in the ass and be done with it? It’s funny because whenever he starts to say something negative about her, like about how she’s strong willed, he immediately switches back to “incredible,” “amazing” mode and praises her.

According to the Daily Mail, he also told Grazia that some of the shots of little Suri by the paparazzi are “incredible.” Here he said that “she doesn’t have to deal with [fame]” and maybe he meant the broader aspects of fame, but Suri is often seen crying and looking visibly upset by the paparazzi surrounding her family and screaming her name. She’s surely affected by it and no amount of “love” and letting her get her way can make up for that. You get that Tom wants to play nice with the media, but he would do well to speak out a little against aggressive photographers.

Update: Cruise essentially said the same thing to The Mirror, and as Agent Bedhead points out he was giving a press conference.

Tom and Katie are shown having lunch with her family at Balthazar restaurant in NY on Halloween. Credit: Bauergriffin. Suri is shown out with her mom eating a cupcake on 11/24/08. Credit: WENN

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32 Responses to “Tom Cruise: Kate and Suri are “strong willed,” “determined””

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  1. Baholicious says:

    “Incredibly wide”?? What does THAT mean? I’m hoping he means ‘expansive’ because, you know, it’s just wrong to tell the press how horny your wife is for you in the vulgar colloquial.

  2. Hillary says:

    This is just another Cruise propaganda attempt to convince people he’s normal. I don’t see Pitt or Damon or any of the other leading men trying SO HARD to make everyone believe him.

    Knock it off, Tom. We all know you’re gay and that Suri is not your kid.

  3. Celebitchy says:

    Baho when a source is listed as “print edition,” it means the author typed in everything from the print edition. If you see a typo in that text it’s human error transcribing.

  4. geronimo says:

    Ha! That’s the first thing that caught my eye too. Does he mean she’s big hipped? Broad in the beam? Or is it just a typo…

    Edit: Ah, bdthomp, that makes more sense….or does it? Katie wise?? 😕

  5. bdthomp says:

    I did chuckle at “incredibly wide” but yes, it’s a typo. Surely they meant “wise.”

  6. Baholicious says:

    CB: It’s a TYPO? 😯 I honestly didn’t know because I mean after all, this is Tom Cruise we’re talking about.

  7. Celebitchy says:

    Like I said, it’s a typo because I typed it in from the print edition of Hello! It’s fixed now. Whenever you see “print edition” as the source, it means the author typed it in.

  8. Mairead says:

    tut tut CB – the naughty step with a copy of “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” for you my girl! 😆

    As for KatE being so strong willed… has he tried CTRL-ALT-DELETE yet? 8)

  9. breederina says:

    He talks about Kate and Suri as though they were one anothers peers which to me is pretty creepy no matter which way you look at it.
    And ZOMG what is that schmata she’s wearing? She looks like she’s been dumpster diving Ralph Lauren in the early 90’s.

  10. MoJo says:

    Lol, no amount of well-worded interviews will ever let me forget him storming out on Katie’s family on Christmas. (It happened down the street from my best friend’s home, after all.) There’s just something about the things he says and how he says it that makes me wonder if he really thinks we’re just that gullible.

  11. aleach says:

    “strong willed” and “determined” are not quite the words i would use to describe katie.
    lets go with “brainwashed” and “robotic” and “fashion disaster”

  12. Cheyenne says:

    Changing a few words to Brit-speak is one thing; making stuff up wholesale is something else again. No two-year-old ever said “Oh Mommy, these are lovely but…”

    Katie looks positively haunted.

  13. Kaiser says:

    Mairead 😆 Did he try to breathe and reboot?

    What I found sketchy was the OK cover – he has *three* “girls” – his wife-bot, Suri, and Isabella. Not two, THREE.

    Ten bucks says that both Bella and Connor has huge complexes about both of their parents and how they are with the “biological” children.

  14. Bros says:

    yah she does look haunted. she could use some time under a tanning lamp and some vitamins, some volumizing spray for that flat static hair and a new stylist.

  15. what is ever. says:

    I think about Conner and Isabella all the time when I read these “family” stories from Tom and Nicole, it’s like they just fell off the planet.

  16. Cletus says:

    Well, I asked MY kid (she’s five) what she thought of Suri’s little “these are lovely” quote, and here is what SHE said: “Oh, mother, at your age one would think you would be able to recognize aggrandizement when you are so obviously confronted with it.”

    After I looked up “aggrandizement” I told her to get in her room and put the kybosh on Dora today. I hate kids.

  17. Mairead says:

    @cletus.. Zounds! 😯

    @ Kaiser – I would have suggested that he “turn her on and off”, but the first part of that sentence made me retch. 😉

  18. vdantev says:

    AKA: the brainwashing is taking too long.

  19. Amy says:

    Cletus–your kid really told you that?

    I don’t know what possessed Katie to wear that outfit. However I have to admit I LOVE Suri’s dress and wouldn’t mind owning an adult sized version of it.

  20. Bodhi says:

    😆 @ Cletus!

    I did a complete double-take when I saw the photo of Katie holding a cupcake-licking Suri. Kat(i)e looks so much like my mother.

    ‘Course my mom was 36 when I was born & has stayed the hell out of the sun for 30 years, but still, wow. [And yes, I have a great relationship with my momma]

  21. Mairead says:

    LOL Bodhi, it’s a really “Mom” moment isn’t it?

    As for Suri’s clothes – tbh, I really covet those shoes, but with an oval gold bit rather than heart-shaped. They look so comfy and would go lovely with one of my (many) bags 😳

  22. doodahs says:

    Aaaw, Suri looks quite adorable licking that cupcake.

    My New Year’s Resolution (starting early) is to want to believe that people can change. I want to believe that people who appeared batshit ke-rrazy in the past, can somehow relax, take a breath and just chill with what they’ve got.

    CB – 😈 (5’7′ reference)

    Not sure how long I can keep this up without falling back to old judgements but I’m startiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing…….. now!

  23. Cletus says:

    I was totally lying about what my kid said. What she actually said was something like “I only like pirate shoes because pirates wear pirate shoes and they are punk rock and I am punk rock”. (Pirate shoes being old-school converse.) She’s bright and all, but she’s FIVE. She can tell you all about the subtle nuances of Walter the Farting Dog, though. It was a small attempt at humore, that’s all. Also I get a kick out of aggrandizement of my own.

  24. Anastasia Beaverhausen says:

    Trousers? Straight away? Is Tom British now?

    God I hate his fake ass and his ugly mug and his crazy ass lying ways. He creeps me out more than anyone alive.

  25. Bodhi says:

    @ Cletus; Your kid is way cool. I consider Chucks pirate shoes as well. 😀

  26. Aspen says:

    Still in short sleeves with no jacket or sweater.

    Sigh.

    Katie’s eyes…the dark circles and the sunken in look. I mean, does she not ever sleep?

  27. Kim says:

    LOL Cletus, smart kid that one.

  28. Cletus says:

    Thanks, y’all…. I guess I’ll keep her since I lost the return receipt. (No, really- thanks for the Ups.)

  29. ILoVeSuri says:

    OMG Tom is so old now. Yikes.

  30. GrnMtGirl says:

    I think the one thing that cracked me up about the whole article was:

    Last week Hello! Magazine in the UK featured some quotes from Tom Cruise about the state of his marriage two years on. He said “And they said it wouldn’t last. I guess we proved them wrong, didn’t we?”

    Two Years? Oh – they’ve made it alright 😯 . Obviously, they are in it for the long haul and their Two years prove it. Hardly ever a marriage that has gone past the two year mark ended…LOFLMAO… 😉 **Jeezum Crow**

  31. Jeanne says:

    Gee, and Kate looks so happy in all of her photos–not! Suri honey, when you’re old enough, ditch those pair of Robo-Parents and run away as far as your little gold shoes will take you.

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