Katie Holmes steps out smiling in public for the first time since filing for divorce from Tom Cruise
Katie Holmes steps out smiling in public for the first time since filing for divorce from Tom Cruise
The couple had been arguing over their daughter’s indoctrination into Scientology and Sea Org was reportedly the last straw for the Catholic-raised Holmes
By Nancy Dillon , Henrick Karoliszyn AND Cristina Everett / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Monday, July 2, 2012, 11:53 AM
Updated: Monday, July 2, 2012, 10:57 PM
First picture of actress Katie Holmes leaves the New School on Seventh Avenue after the announcement of her divorce with actor Tom Cruise in New York, NY on July 2, 2012.
Charles Guerin-Morgan Dessalles/ABACAUSA
Katie Holmes leaves the New School on Seventh Avenue amidst a swarm of fans on Monday.
Katie Holmes emerged from seclusion Monday, shedding remnants of Tom Cruise — including her wedding ring.
Holmes surfaced without her wedding band, just days after filing for divorce Thursday in a bid to save the couple’s 6-year-old daughter from Scientology’s clutches.
Holmes, spotted with the sparkler as recently as last week, smiled and seemed to relish her newfound independence as she breezed into a taping of Lifetime’s “Project Runway: All Stars” at Parsons The New School of Design in Manhattan.
“She did great,” show judge Isaac Mizrahi told People.com of the six-hour shoot, for which she acted as a guest judge.
EX-SCIENTOLOGIST: HOW I ESCAPED THIS CULT AND WHAT KATIE IS UP AGAINST NOW
ALG Katie ringlessHolmes sits in the back of her luxury car without a ring on her finger. (Steffman,Turgeon/Splash News)
Holmes was surrounded by a new group of self-selected handlers in another sign the beautiful brunette is firmly in charge as she breaks from the Cruise-controlled, Scientology-centered world she’s inhabited the last 51/2 years.
A source confirmed she sacked the publicist she has worked with since 2007 and returned to pre-marriage mouthpiece Leslie Sloane at BWR.
Raised a Catholic in Ohio, Holmes fired Sloane just months after meeting the “Top Gun” star in 2005, a move that paved the way for Cruise’s Scientologist sister Lee Ann DeVette to take over as the couple’s public rep.
The “Dawson’s Creek” star later hired respected West Coast publicist Ina Treciokas in 2007 to restore some sanity after DeVette’s disastrous run, but the return to Sloane sent a clear signal.
“It happened in the last week,” a source close to Sloane told the Daily News.
Holmes also fired the old security team that guarded her as recently as last week, TMZ reported.
According to the website, the bodyguard and driver worked for Cruise for years before he even met Holmes and followed her every move while in New York.Holmes, 33, pulled the plug on her much-maligned marriage with a surprise filing seeking sole legal custody of the couple’s only child Suri.
Her paperwork, filed anonymously, cited “irreconcilable differences” and stated that the union broke down more than six months ago — language necessary for Holmes to use New York’s new no-fault law.
Cruise was planning to file for divorce in California where experts say he’d have a better chance at getting at least partial custody of Suri. The actor has been in Iceland filming his new movie “Oblivion.”
Fear that little Suri would be ripped from her clutches and inducted into the hardcore Scientology priesthood called Sea Org was the last straw, TMZ reported.
The actress was convinced Cruise planned to prep their young daughter for an early entrance into the ultra-zealous group and had no choice but to cut ties, TMZ said.
According to reports and sources interviewed by The News, parenting issues and fears about Sea Org weighed heavily on the actress who lived in Cruise’s shadow for much of their time together.
“I think it is more than plausible (Sea Org) wanted Suri,” Marty Rathbun, a former high-ranking Sea Org member who defected in 2004, told The News. “The educational process has been geared more and more toward getting kids to go into the Sea Org earlier and earlier, at around 10, 12 or 14.”
He said Suri is at the age now where private tutoring and “casual” indoctrination could set the stage for her eventual move to Sea Org’s base in Hemet, Calif.
“The whole purpose for being a tutor for the kids is not education, it’s to get them on to be full-blown zealots at an early age. The thought process is to turn them into zealots,” he said.He recalled watching Cruise’s adopted son Connor, now 17, when he visited Scientology’s Los Angeles-based Celebrity Center in 2001, around the time of Cruise’s split from second wife Nicole Kidman.
Connor was 6 years old back then, the same age as Suri is now, and Rathbun said he casually introduced the curious tyke to an E-meter — the electronic device that acts like a lie-detector test in Scientology counseling sessions called “auditing.”
“I showed him the E-meter, and he was playing around with it. Tom was thrilled, and the next thing you know, they started doing indoctrination with him, within a matter of days,” said Rathbun, author of the book “What is Wrong with Scientology?”
“They were talking to him, telling him what it’s about, maybe reading to him, translating it to a language he could understand,” Rathbun recalled.
Sea Org, started by L. Ron Hubbard aboard a ship in the 1960s, has often been compared to a boot camp and criticized by ex-Scientologists for its military-like conditions.
According to the official Scientology website, Sea Org members sign “a one-billion-year pledge to symbolize their eternal commitment to the religion.”
Cruise, who turns 50 on Tuesday, was blindsided by his wife’s divorce filing, according to a statement released by his publicist. He’s devastated.
“Kate has filed for divorce and Tom is deeply saddened and is concentrating on his three children. Please allow them their privacy to work this out,” the rep said Friday.
Connor Cruise, who was home-schooled by his dad’s stern Scientologist sister Cass Mapother, posted a Twitter message Monday that appeared to be a declaration of loyalty.
“La Familia Always. Friends Come And Go, But Family Is Forever,” the message read.Reports suggest Holmes signed a prenup that would give her $3 million for each year of marriage and a $3.5 million home in Montecito, Calif. Cruise has reportedly amassed a fortune of more than $275 million.
Read more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/katie-holmes-feared-tom-cruise-send-daughter-suri-intense-scientology-organization-article-1.1106324#ixzz1zWkIgJYm
