‘I’m sure Tom’s plan is to lure Suri into Scientology’. As Suri Cruise heads to university having not seen her dad in a decade, an ex-member of the controversial religion reveals her fears…

Suri Cruise, or Suri Noelle as she prefers to be known, is radiantly confident in the spotlight. As befits a graduate from New York’s LaGuardia ‘Fame School’ — whose alumni include Jennifer Aniston and Timothee Chalamet — being the centre of attention suits her well.

Suri, 18, positively bounced on to the stage at her graduation last month to warm cheers from the audience. She blew a theatrical kiss before accepting her diploma.

Her mother Katie Holmes, 45, said: ‘My goal has always been to nurture her individuality. To make sure she’s 100 per cent herself, strong, confident and able.’

She’s being talked about as the next ‘It Girl’ in the city — thanks to her sense of style and family background, which is intriguing. There’s even talk of a Vogue magazine cover.

Beautiful, popular and outgoing, Suri is a talented singer and vocals were her major at LaGuardia. Yet now she’s off. Leaving both New York and her mother’s protective embrace, she’s headed to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to study fashion.

It is a step Katie clearly supports, having surrounded Suri with a ‘fashion family’ in the absence of a real one. Indeed, Holmes herself is a big-hitter in the fashion world, with a widely admired sense of style.

As every mother knows, however, it is also at this point that a child starts to leave their orbit and pursue their own life path, leaving some to speculate on the possibility of Suri coming under the influence of the man Katie has long tried to keep at arm’s length — her father Tom Cruise, 62.

Multiple sources indicate that Suri has ‘no relationship’ with Cruise, and has had barely any contact for at least a decade.

Though nobody on either side will comment about the relationship — quite possibly because that was part of the divorce agreement — at the time of the split it was clear that Holmes wanted to keep Suri away from Scientology, the religious movement Cruise has been part of for almost 40 years.

Yet now Suri is 18, some believe he might attempt a rapprochement. Actress Leah Remini, who defected from Scientology, thinks Holmes needs to watch out, saying: ‘I’m sure [Cruise’s] master plan is to wait until Suri gets older so he can lure her into Scientology and away from her mother.’

Suri’s recent actions, however, tell a compelling story of almost total paternal estrangement.

In March 2023, she was listed in the chorus of a school production as ‘Suri Cruise’ — her birth name. But nine months later, she was going by ‘Suri Noelle’ — Noelle being Holmes’s middle name. That was how she chose to be credited for her leading role as Morticia in a school production of The Addams Family, and upon graduating last month, it’s what she officially used, too.

It’s a sad repudiation, but the amount of influence Cruise should have over his daughter has long been the subject of a bitter tussle. And despite all his wealth and power, Cruise has hitherto been entirely defeated on it.

He admitted in court after the divorce that a desire to keep Suri out of Scientology was one of the factors which ended the marriage.

Holmes returned to the Catholic faith of her youth after their split in 2012, when Suri was six, and she has raised her daughter firmly outside of Cruise’s beliefs. An only child, Suri could have fallen prey to loneliness in the 12 years that have passed. As a toddler, she was doted on by her dad, his sisters and her half-siblings Connor and Isabella — who Cruise shares with Nicole Kidman.

Yet a number of high-profile New York fashionistas have stepped into the breach.

Among them are Holmes’s dear friend, designer Zac Posen, her friend and stylist Brie Welch, and Scottish actor Alan Cumming.

I’m told they are part of a tight group that has been around Katie and her daughter since that bombshell split from Cruise.

Crucially, the group includes Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, who is a fan of Holmes and has always supported her.

Wintour’s colleague Chioma Nnadi, the new head of editorial content for British Vogue, has been singing Holmes’s praises this month, too, describing her as the ultimate ‘relatable’ fashion influencer. She said: ‘Katie Holmes is the woman everyone watches when it comes to celebrity style.’

Nnadi has noticed that if the Vogue website runs an item on what shoes Holmes is wearing, traffic ‘goes crazy’. When Holmes wore a cashmere bra from New York-based label Khaite in 2019, the look went viral. The same happened when she wore a long tunic over jeans in 2022.

Holmes has just released a collection with French brand A.P.C., and Zac Posen was with her in Paris when she took a trip to celebrate it, alongside Brie Welch and her mother Kathleen. In turn, Katie has raised Suri to be a fashion star. Might she do a mother-daughter shoot for Vogue? Nobody would bet against that.

Yet Suri was originally destined for a life influenced not by the latest styles, but by Cruise’s unconventional ‘faith’.

Baby Suri was born in a Scientology-ordered ‘silent birth’ in 2006, meaning no one within hearing distance of the labouring mother was allowed to speak, and was introduced to the world with a Vanity Fair cover story six months later.

Cruise said: ‘My whole life I wanted to be a father. I always said to myself that my children would be able to depend on me and I would be there for them and love them — I’d never make a promise to my kids I couldn’t keep.’

Katie and Tom were married in Italy seven months after the birth. It was a fabulously opulent affair but, despite reports that there would be some Catholic element, it was entirely Scientologist. Conducted by David Miscavige, Cruise’s best friend and head of the movement, it was choreographed like a massive movie premiere, with more bodyguards than guests. The ultimate goal, it seemed, was to produce the fantastically romantic images later released to the media of the A-list star and his pretty bride.

Yet almost from the moment they returned from the wedding, Katie looked unhappy. Gossip circulated that she wanted out of the marriage. Cruise’s decision to live in a huge house in Los Angeles with his sisters and their children apparently did not appeal.

A nice girl from Ohio, Katie joined the religion when she started dating Cruise — but its insistence on having its subjects ‘E-metered for negative thoughts’ seemed to frighten her. And she could see Suri would have to go through ‘auditing’ — a process of intense questioning to improve subjects’ ‘spiritual abilities’ — which Tom’s children with Kidman, Connor and Bella, were going through.

Effectively, Katie took to spending her time in Cruise’s New York apartment rather than the family home in LA — while he travelled the world, filming.

Aided by burner mobile phones, she secretly filed for divorce in 2012 and hired a PR. It was always said that her father Martin, an attorney, had advised her.

Cruise was taken by surprise by the filing while he was on the set of Oblivion in Iceland in June of that year. Her lawyer Jonathan Wolfe said: ‘This is a personal and private matter for Katie and her primary concern remains her daughter’s best interest.’

In a deposition the following year, it became explicit what that meant. During a court battle over magazine reports which accused him of ‘abandoning’ Suri, he was asked whether his wife had left him ‘to protect Suri from Scientology’. Cruise replied: ‘Did she say that? That was one of the assertions, yes.’

Under the terms of the divorce Cruise, who has an estimated $600 million (£469 million) fortune, agreed to pay Holmes $400,000 (£312,868) a year until Suri turned 18, as well as future ‘medical, dental, insurance, education, college and other extracurricular costs’.

In the years that followed, both mother and daughter kept a low profile. Katie had an arms-length romance with actor Jamie Foxx which ended in 2019.

She volunteered to be a classroom assistant at Suri’s school and made sure her daughter made friends with the ‘regular’ kids. Sources said Katie was ‘always very involved’ and that her daughter seemed charming and bright, and ‘perhaps unusually close to her mum’.

‘It’s important I’m present and Suri has a stable, innocent childhood,’ Katie said at the time.

A source said: ‘Katie has safeguarded Suri and she’s a devoted mom. This is a girl who is a private citizen. She hasn’t lived her life in public.’

Meanwhile, Suri’s future direction, shepherded by her attentive mother, was becoming clear. Aged only 15, she sang Blue Moon on one of her mother’s films, Alone Together. Katie said: ‘She’s very, very talented. She said she would do it and she recorded it and I let her do her thing.

‘That’s the way I direct in general: it’s like, “This is what I think we all want — go do your thing.” I always want the highest level of talent, so I asked her.’

During the pandemic, mother and daughter had a golden time in their bubble. Katie said: ‘We were staying by a lake, so we probably watched Dirty Dancing ten times. I danced to it in the living room, and it still holds up. It was fun.’ They also watched together, for the first time, Dawson’s Creek — the show which made Holmes famous.

She told Glamour magazine last year: ‘I’m very grateful to be her parent. She’s an incredible person. She’s my heart.

‘She came out very strong — she’s always been a strong personality. You want them to stay with you forever, but they’re these amazing beings, and you have to do everything you can to give them what they need — and then they’re going to go.’

And in Suri’s case, go very far indeed, you suspect. The question is whether that journey will now include her father again.