Tom Cruise to Oprah:
"I Have Been Misunderstood"
Friday May 2, 2008
Harpo Productions, Inc.
In the first part of his interview with
Oprah Winfrey (airing Friday),
Tom Cruise reveals that he jumped on her couch in 2005 because he was so in love with
Katie Holmes and couldn't contain himself.
Winfrey confessed that the incident caught her by surprise.
"When we finished that show with you jumping up on the sofa, I was like, 'Wow. What was that?'" she tells him in an interview in his Telluride, Colo., home. "I had no idea it was going to turn into an international brouhaha, as I'm sure you did not either."
She even confesses, "I was a little nervous coming up this morning, I have to admit, because you and I have not sat down for a real conversation since the sofa incident."
Cruise tells Winfrey, "I just felt that way, and I feel that way about her.
"I can't even articulate it, to be honest," he adds. "That feeling, that connection. Just who she is and what she means to me."
Of the negative response to his couch jumping, Cruise says, "It just kind of kept going.
"Those things I kind of go, 'You just have to take in stride.' It just kind of became a confluence of things."
ON ATTACKING MATT LAUER
He also opened up about his 2005 interview with
Matt Lauer (Cruise attacked the anchor, calling him "glib" during a chat about psychiatry and the use of anti-depressant drugs).
"I was feeling pressed in the interview with Matt Lauer," Cruise says. "For me, my issue was really about child drugging. It's not like it is today, like people are really kind of openly talking about this."
(Cruise now says of medicating children, "I think the parent should be able to and should make that decision.")
ON SLAMMING BROOKE SHIELDS
He says his comments on post-partum depression "came out wrong." (He slammed
Brooke Shields in the same 2005 interview for taking Paxil to treat post-partum depression following the birth of her daughter Rowan.)
"What I regret is even discussing Brooke in any way," Cruise says.
He says the incident has brought the two of them "closer" (Shields attended his 2006 wedding to Holmes.)
ON BEING A SCIENTOLOGIST
Cruise dodges Winfrey's question about whether he feels people negatively target him because of his Scientology involvement.
"It's a minority religion, and I think that sometimes people misinterpret [it]," he says. "I think the best thing is for people to read about it themselves. I believe people have the right to choose what they believe in.
"The code of Scientologists says you respect the religious beliefs of others," Cruise adds. "That's part of being a Scientologist, and that's who I am as a person."
In January, videos leaked online of Cruise at Scientology events discussing the religion. He says the footage "was stolen. I was receiving an award that evening for global literacy. It was a very private moment. I'm actually talking to my congregation."
"It's [taken] totally out of context," he adds.
ON BUYING A SONOGRAM MACHINE FOR HOLMES DURING HER PREGNANCY
Cruise says he and Holmes took great pains to keep her pregnancy private. "We went in the middle of the night, and we were very excited -- this is such a private moment," he says.
"My life was already a zoo," he says. When news leaked, "it was off the charts."
As for purchasing a sonogram machine for Holmes, Cruise explains, "When you're having a baby, you just want it to be as safe and as easy as possible."
ON KEEPING SURI HIDDEN FOR SO LONG
Lots of rumors spread about their daughter, Suri, because the couple kept her hidden after she was born. Some blogs speculated that the child was deformed. That talk, Cruise says, was "hard to hear.
"We just want to have our baby, have the kids and everyone get to know Suri, get the family up here and just chill and have that time that you never get back," he explains. "You don't ever get those moments back."
On waiting three months to publish her photo in
Vanity Fair in 2006, Cruise says, "Kate and I didn't feel any need to [rush] it. We said, 'Why? It's our family.' We just were on Suri time."
ON DAUGHTER SURI
"She's spectacular," he says. "She really is just magic."
His two children with ex Nicole Kidman, Connor and Isabella, "were really excited."
ON HIS MARRIAGE WITH HOLMES BEING FAKE
"That's laughable to me," Cruise says. 'You just know that they're trying to sell it and spin it."
He says Holmes' Catholic family has welcomed him.
"They're amazing. I love them," Cruise says. "You see why Kate is such an amazing woman -- incredible integrity and strength. They're family."
ON RUMORS THAT HE HAS PUSHED NICOLE KIDMAN OUT OF THEIR KIDS' LIVES
"No, that's ridiculous," he says. "We share custody. That's what it is."
ON HIS REPUTATION
"Listen I, I feel like definitely things have been misunderstood, and there are things I could have done better," Cruise admits. "But then there's also that world where you go, 'Oh, it's been spun to such an extent that ... that's a truth also.'
He continues, "Knowing when and where to communicate, I think that's important.
"A lot of times I was nervous giving interviews. Or I wasn't sometimes as comfortable about things. And I realized that it's okay.
"There's stuff you have to just let go," Cruise adds. "I just have to do the best I can."
Usmagazine.com | Us Weekly Celebrity Breaking News Blog
Excerpts from the 
When you have a crush on someone, you fuck them! You don't marry them. Shit, you don't even kiss them. That's too complicated. You get on, get off and get out! -Michael K from Dlisted
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