The 95th Academy Awards had two notable absentees over the weekend: Tom Cruise and James Cameron. “The two guys who insisted we go to the theatre didn’t come to the theatre,” Kimmel joked about the pair’s impassioned push to get people back into the cinemas after the pandemic. What the host said next is probably the reason why Cruise was nowhere to be seen. “Everyone loved Top Gun, everyone! I mean, Tom Cruise with his shirt off in that beach football scene? L Ron hubba hubba,” Kimmel joked, referring to Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard and the controversial religion of which Cruise is an advocate.
Kimmel’s wife, executive producer Molly McNearney, has since said that her husband wouldn’t have made the joke in Cruise’s presence, which is revealing in itself, but for Cruise, why risk it? It’s not like he needs to get more famous - he literally could not get more famous. Instead, the actor was hanging out in London, attending Michael Caine’s 90th birthday party days later. It might have been the Alfie star’s big day, but the headlines were all about Cruise. What could be a better middle finger to the Academy than skipping Hollywood’s biggest night of the year to hang out with David Walliams and Denise Welch (Caine’s unlikely guests)? Cruise – Hollywood’s brightest star – is the measuring stick by which his peers are judged, and he chose one of the Loose Women over them!
