This bizarre video of Tom Cruise extolling the joys of Scientology is just the latest disaster to befall the fallen star
Tom Cruise is not a man who is generally given to moments of self-doubt. In times of crisis, his habit is to open up his daredevil side and go skydiving, or take off for a ride on a motorbike.
This January, however, things are bleak indeed. Sources in the U.S. say that he has had trouble sleeping and been tearful at times - much to the distress of his young wife, Katie Holmes.
For just as Katie, 29, reinvents herself as a glamorous, strong young woman, all toned biceps and couture frocks, Tom is entrenched in a crisis. The crisis has been spearheaded by this week's leaked internet video, showing the star making a bizarre rant in praise of Scientology, on top of the stress caused by the publication of a scandal-drenched biography and his continually misfiring career.
Poor Tom has even had to cope with his ex-wife Nicole Kidman's pregnancy - not to mention his ongoing battle with his weight.
Those close to Cruise say he is overwhelmed with frustration as the credibility he fought so hard to regain over the past 18 months slips away. No wonder, in light of this video, which was never meant for public consumption.
The nine-minute clip shows Cruise in full-on Scientology preacher mode, with the theme tune to his hit flick Mission: Impossible in the background.
Cruise insists that Scientology can save drug addicts, rehabilitate criminals and even bring about world peace.
He issued a rallying cry to other Scientologists to change the world, saying: "Now is the time", and confessed he was "dedicated" to taking Scientology to the masses.
He goes on: "I have to tell you something, it is rough and tumble, and it's wild and woolly, and it's a blast, it's a blast, it really is fun because, dammit, there is nothing better than going out there and fighting the fight and suddenly you see things are better.
"I do what I can, and I do it the way I do everything. There's nothing part of the way for me."
This will stir up gossip about Cruise's overwhelming devotion to Scientology - whispers that had already been given vim by the recent 'tell-all' unauthorised biography by Andrew Morton, published this week.
More frustrating for Cruise, 45, is that he had thought he was winning back his fans. He hoped the public had forgotten his strange couch-jumping incident on Oprah Winfrey's show, as well those controversial rants about post-natal depression, which almost destroyed his reputation in 2006.
But it is perhaps even harder for him to live down the humiliation of being dumped from a producing deal with Paramount by media mogul Sumner Redstone - because women, including Redstone's wife, Paula, found him creepy.
"He turned off all women and a lot of men," Redstone said. "Paula and women everywhere had come to hate him."
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Big star: Tom Cruise has been battling middle-age spreed in recent years and looked 'distinctly jowly' on the red carpet last week with wife Katie
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This video and Morton's book could not have come at a worse time for Cruise. He wants to be seen as a sex symbol and Hollywood power-player, but instead is teetering on the brink of being regarded as an embarrassment and - because of his devotion to Scientology - a weirdo.
Despite his highly publicised wedding and his willingness to be portrayed as a family man, Cruise is still not quite accepted as a 'regular guy'.
Morton's book has fuelled the flames of scandal. One of the allegations is that Cruise's one-year-old daughter, Suri, is said by some Scientologists to have been conceived using the frozen sperm of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
Morton writes: "In her more reflective moments, Katie might have felt as if she were in the middle of a real-life version of the horror movie Rosemary's Baby, in which an unsuspecting young woman is impregnated with the Devil's child."
This suggestion, which seems to have been lifted from an internet site on which it appeared in spring 2006, has infuriated Cruise.
"Just how is it," asked a close friend of the actor this week, "that when Nicole Kidman gets pregnant it's all good news, but when Tom Cruise has a baby, people say he has had L. Ron Hubbard inseminate his wife?
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Katie Holmes: Mrs Cruise has reinvented herself as a glamorous young woman, while her husband lurches from one crisis to another
"It's just sick, offensive and very upsetting. How can anyone write that kind of thing about a man who has three children? It's plain vicious, and we all feel very hurt for Tom and Kate."
Karin Pouw, a Scientology spokeswoman, said: "The Church does not and never has believed any newborn is the reincarnation or the offspring of its founder, Mr Hubbard - never, never, never. This is vicious sensationalism of the lowest order and Mr Morton could not have possibly believed such a story to be true."
Mud seems to be sticking, regardless. The public's growing ambivalence - and some even say dislike - of former golden boy Cruise was in evidence last month. Moviegoers stayed away in droves from Lions For Lambs, the comeback movie, which he starred in and produced with his new studio, United Artists.
Cruise, who was sure that the Iraq war film with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep would restore him to the ranks of the Hollywood elite, is crestfallen. Not only was it slated by the critics, it was a commercial disaster.
It cost £50 million to make and promote - but took just £7 million in the U.S. and £1.5million in the UK.
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Father and daughter: There are rumours that Tom's daughter Suri was conceived using the frozen sperm of Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard
As a result, Tom is down about his career, unsure about his attractiveness, and becoming self-conscious about his weight.
Last week's premiere of his wife's latest foray on to the big screen, Mad Money, saw Tom on the red carpet looking distinctly jowly. Cruise also reportedly resorted to wearing a girdle on his wedding day to hide the creep of middle-aged spread.
Though he recently lost weight, he is rarely seen out of three-piece suits in slimming black and dark grey, which are custom-made by Italian tailors Brioni to be as flattering as possible.
The weeks to come will bring yet more public embarrassment as Morton's book, Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography flies off the shelves.
So, what does it say? It certainly depicts Cruise as a committed Scientologist, conducting every aspect of his life - career, relationships, family - in accord with his religious beliefs. But the book falls far short of nailing any scandal about Cruise's private life.
Any idea that Morton might be suggesting that Cruise is gay or bisexual or has had homosexual experiences is dispelled in the first sentence: "If truth be told, Tom Cruise Mapother IV has always been something of a ladies' man."
Andrew Morton's book on Cruise has been described by Tom's ex-wife Mimi Rogers as 'ludicrous'
How curious. For Morton, never shy about blowing his own trumpet, was telling friends just this summer that this was to be a red-hot read, containing "genuine revelations" about the actor's sexual history and sexuality.
"He told me that he had nailed some stories about Cruise's private life and that it would really set the cat among the pigeons," said one of Morton's associates.
Perhaps the lawyers at the publishers, St Martin's Press, found the book too close to the legal bone - or maybe Morton himself decided he did not, in the end, have the necessary facts to make the salacious page-turner he promised.
Indeed, the fact that it is not going to be published in the UK, where libel laws are stricter, points to legal problems.
When Morton was contacted by the Mail, he was not willing to discuss what was in the book and why. "I will not talk to you in a million years," he said, loftily from his Regent's Park flat.
Yet much about the book is already known. Morton, made wealthy and notorious by his breakthrough book, Diana, Her True Story, has spent two years and tens of thousands of dollars on researchers, and flown across America to interview associates and friends of Cruise.
He even hired former porn star Paul Barresi, who now operates as a private investigator in Hollywood's sleazy sub-culture, to 'look into' the issue of Cruise's alleged homosexuality.
Barresi's verdict? "Everything I've found, and everything I know, points to Tom being heterosexual."
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Happy family: Tom with Kate and one-year-old Suri
Barresi spoke to a male model who once claimed he took part in a wrestling and masturbation session with Cruise in the late 1990s - but said the model now denied the encounter.
Another man who claimed to have had sex with the actor wanted to be paid $500,000 and was described by Barresi as "not credible".
He concluded: "I believe that the rumours about Tom being gay come from his detractors, most of whom are former Scientologists."
Cruise's representatives no doubt breathed a heavy sigh of relief upon reading the first page. For no other Hollywood star has a private life that has been the subject of more speculation than Tom Cruise. The belief, often stated bluntly, is that there is something insincere and rather chilling about him.
"Isn't the way he conducts his relationships creepy?" detractors ask. "Doesn't he appear ill-at-ease with women?" And even, "Doesn't he look like a homosexual in that polo-neck?"
Much of the suspicion about Cruise stems from his devotion to Scientology, which preaches that the human race has been taken over by an alien race called Thetans.
So it is Cruise's relationship with the Church's leader, David Miscavige, that is more fertile ground for Morton than any supposed homosexual encounters.
Cruise and Miscavige have been close friends since the mid-1980s. He was the best man at Cruise's wedding to Katie Holmes. A friend of the star told the Mail: "He and David are best friends and it is as simple as that."
Andrew Morton claims that Tom Cruise is the 'de facto' second-in-command in Scientology
This relationship is equivalent to being best friends with the Pope, for Miscavige has led the Scientology organisation for 20 years, and was one of L. Ron Hubbard's young aides before he died.
He has a gutsy reputation, earning his spurs by conducting a purge of rogue Scientologists when he was a young man, and transforming the movement's fortunes by striking a deal with the American authorities to gain tax exemption in 1991.
Intense, short and ferocious when criticised, Miscavige has a similar temperament to Cruise.
One of Morton's new allegations, though, takes the well-known association to another level. He says Cruise is the 'de facto' second-in-command in Scientology.
This is denied by Cruise's spokesman and by Scientology's Karin Pouw. A friend of the actor adds: "I think he is a bit busy with other things in his life, rather than running a worldwide religious organisation. After all, that would take quite a bit of time."
And the many other allegations - that Cruise wants to recruit David Beckham to the Church, that Nicole Kidman feared she would be blackmailed over tapes about her sex life made with Scientologists - are not new, and are denied by the Scientologists and the Cruise support team, who say they are contemplating legal action.
Even if the book does not nail any sensational gossip, it has caused upset in the Cruise camp. Cruise's spokesperson described it as "a false, vicious and bigoted attack on a man, his religion, his family, and even his young children".
The Scientologists call the book a "gross falsity" and a "compendium of tabloid lies". They also deny any involvement in the Kidman-Cruise divorce or Cruise's split from his first wife Mimi Rogers - their stand on the latter at least being backed by fellow Scientologist Mimi, who this week described Morton's book as "ludicrous".
The Scientologists are pressing to have the book amended before its release, and Cruise's lawyer, Bert Fields, is readying himself for the fray, saying he believes that if they sue, they will certainly win.
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The Scientologists deny any involvement in the Kidman-Cruise divorce
Fields told the Mail: "The only comment I will make is that obviously the book is actionable, it is riddled with false statements. But at this point I will not comment on what action we will take."
However, one observer of the New York media scene said: "My belief is that Tom and his team are chalking this book up as a win. I think that he killed this book, in so much as Tom's very high-profile reputation meant that any more questionable material was not used.
"I don't think that in the end there will be a lawsuit. They don't like it, it isn't flattering, but it is not that bad. It is mostly just a boring rehash."
Boring rehash, or not, Morton has given Cruise a very unhappy start to the New Year. So, will 2008 see Tom re-ignite his stuttering career - as well as losing a few of the several chins he has recently acquired? Only time will tell.
As his bizarre Scientology video is revealed - is Tom Cruise out of control? | the Daily Mail
As his bizarre Scientology video is revealed - is 
I haven't liked Tom since his Cocktail days. Stop being so nice, let the hate in. 
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