So the great joint parting of Xenu’s most famous inhabitants, Tom “Nebulan” Cruise and Katie “Jupiterdiah” Holmes has occurred today. TomKat will be no more, and so it is writ. This day in history marks the divorce settlement in a case of weirdness and speculation that has riveted every major news outlet, and simultaneously caused yet another bit of scrutiny into the batshit nuts cult religion that is Scientology.
The major sticking point since Holmes filed for divorce less than two weeks ago was custody of the couple’s daughter, Suri. There’s no word as of yet how custody has been settled or what the division of visitation will be. Rumors report that Cruise will obtain “significant” time with Suri, which is a far cry from the settlement he landed with former wife Nicole Kidman, who basically lost custody of the two children she and Cruise adopted. The Cruise/Kidman divorce was also a much more drawn out affair.
Our little Dawson’s Creek, Joey, apparently learned a lot in her five-year contract marriage with the world’s biggest Scientologist. It appears she learned how to use publicity that stoked the omnipresent potential for some rather telling if not outright damaging information about the church and Cruise’s involvement leaking to the press, even if it just played out in the media and became a growing albatross around the neck of Scientology. In effect, this lady held all the cards and was able to stop Scientology in its tracks which has been known to be litigious and no stranger to using intimidation when it comes to protecting their members and its institution. And for this divorce settlement to take less than two weeks, one must wonder just what information Katie had that could make Cruise and his ilk capitulate so easily and handle the divorce in such an unorthodox and expedient manner. Hoo-Boy. It must’ve been a doozy. We’re probably talking time travel and turning members into chest bursting, lizard people, or just all the regular odd stuff Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis discussed in his extremely in depth article with The New Yorker about his affiliation with the church for more than thirty years.
As the New York Times reported yesterday, divorcing from Scientology is no simple matter. The expectation is that couples who marry will stay together through “life that is stark and often somewhat grim.” And if ever the sentiment of divorce arises, couples are also expected to take part in grueling counseling sessions, complete with “auditors” measuring each response using Scientology’s favorite tool, the e-meter, which is some sort of monitor that supposedly detects unexpressed thoughts. The predicted outcome of the “counseling” is retention of the marriage. However, if that fails, the two parties will be assigned in-house lawyers with the goal of containing public disputes as they embark on the divorce process. It seems Holmes decided to get her own lawyer, and perhaps that was the first indication that this divorce would not go the way things with Nicole Kidman went.
It is rumored that Holmes did not want to repeat that event.
We may never find out what the conditions of the divorce decree are in terms of money, or the custody arrangement, but it’s good to see Holmes using a bit of strategy to get the best for herself and her daughter, which seems to exist somewhere in the realm of freedom from the Church of Scientology. We predict a whole slew of new acting roles for the newly minted power-player. Taking on Scientology should at least garner a badass role where she gets to kick some ass in a spacesuit. Rock on, Katie.
