Dropping your child off at university is an undoubtedly emotional experience for any parent – but returning home to an empty nest might be harder for Katie Holmes than most.
Over the weekend, the Dawson’s Creek actress, 45, was pictured helping her daughter Suri Cruise, 18, move into her dorm at Carnegie Mellon university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Dressed in matching baggy denims and flowing white shirts, the images were a reminder of how Suri has grown up as her mother’s ‘mini me’ and closest companion.
It’s hard to think of a mother-daughter pairing in Hollywood more intrinsically linked than Katie and her daughter – and perhaps it’s no surprise, given the actress never remarried after her 2012 divorce from Tom Cruise, and Suri is her only child.
Katie fought hard to win full custody after their split, and for the past 12 years she has received a reported $400,000-a-year in child support from her ex-husband, which she is no longer entitled to now that Suri is 18.
It’s another significant change in circumstance for Katie, who will inevitably have to forge a new path for herself now that her daughter has flown the nest – but with patchy career success over the past decade, she finds herself at a difficult juncture.
Pictured: Katie Holmes seen helping her 18-year-old daughter Suri Cruise move into her Carnegie Mellon university dorm over the weekend
When Tom and Katie (pictured) finalised their divorce in 2012, the ex-couple issued a statement insisting they were ‘working together as parents to accomplish what is in our daughter Suri’s best interests’
She did not receive a lump sum from Cruise in their divorce and without the buffer of child support, her own earning potential becomes rather more crucial.
However, Katie has struggled to professionally match the dizzying heights of Dawson’s Creek’s success, which turned her into a household name in 1998.
In recent years she’s increasingly devoted herself to her own projects, including Covid drama Alone Together, which she wrote, directed and starred in and was labelled ‘trite and misguided’ by critics.
On top of this, the star’s personal life has also proved tumultuous.
Relationships have been either short-lived or intensely private, like her six-year, on-off romance with Jamie Foxx, who was formerly friends with Tom Cruise.
As Katie enters this new stage in her life, FEMAIL delves into the actress’ uncertain future – from her rollercoaster romantic life to faltering career.
Dependent on Suri
There’s no denying Katie and Suri are one of the closest mother-and-daughter duos in Hollywood – but how will the Dawson’s Creek star fare now her teen has fled the nest?
As well as regularly stepping out in matching outfits, devoted mother Katie has also incorporated her teen daughter’s music into her movies over the years.
When Tom and Katie finalised their divorce in 2012, the ex-couple issued a statement insisting they were ‘working together as parents to accomplish what is in our daughter Suri’s best interests’.
Pictured: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in Rome in November 2006 – days before their lavish wedding
Pictured: Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise seen leaving the American Ballet Theater at Lincoln Center in New York in May 2018
As well as paying Katie $38,000-a year in child support, the divorce documents revealed Tom covered all of Suri’s expenses, including ‘medical, dental, insurance, education, college and other extracurricular costs.’
However, the Mission Impossible has reportedly not seen his daughter for over 10 years and has ‘no part’ in Suri’s life.
In June 2012, it was reported that Katie decided to file for divorce in New York because it could potentially give her a better chance of gaining sole custody of Suri.
With a financial pre-nuptial already in place, it is thought that Holmes purposefully filed for divorce in New York state and not California because New York dislikes giving warring parents joint custody.
The mother-and-daughter famously have an extremely close relationship and Suri even appeared on the soundtrack for Katie’s 2022 movie Alone Together.
The rom-com’s soundtrack featured Suri’s cover of Blue Moon, which her mother labelled the ‘best’.
Katie spoke to Yahoo Entertainment about her decision to have Suri sing the two songs and revealed: ‘I always want the highest level of talent.’
Pictured: Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise seen hailing a taxi in downtown New York – where the actress raised her daughter
Pictured: Mother and daughter Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise attend the Z100’s Jingle Ball 2017 in December 2017
‘So I asked her. She’s very, very talented. She said she would do it and she recorded it, and I let her do her thing,’ Katie gushed. Suri also contributed a song to Katie Holmes’ 2023 movie Rare Objects.
In 2017, she said that pivoting her career towards directing rather than acting was a deliberate move to be more present for Suri, then 10 years old.
‘The thing about directing is I can say I have this window and that’s when we’re getting it done,’ she explained.
She described Suri growing up as ‘heartbreaking’, saying: ‘You have to do everything you can to give them what they need—and then they’re going to go. And that’s going to be very, very sad for me.’
Aware that she would struggle without her daughter, Katie recently joked to Town & Country that she was going to cope with empty nest syndrome by calling on her book club friends.
She told the publication: ‘The members of my book club are going to get annoyed hearing from me.
”I’ll be like, “Let’s meet once a week”.’
Suri Cruise and Katie Holmes attend the Oklahoma City Thunder Vs New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden in December 2017
Pictured: Katie Holmes and daughter Suri Cruise seen on the Upper West Side of New York in July 2019
Katie added: ‘I’m proud of my daughter. Of course, I will miss the close proximity, but I’m really proud of her and I’m happy.’
In an interview with Glamour in April 2023, Katie revealed she always encourages Suri to perform on her projects.
‘I hope she always does something on my films,’ Holmes said. ‘I always ask her.’
Katie said that ‘both of those experiences came out of the same sense of what I love about our industry, which is, you have these projects and you become a family with people.’
Holmes said she strived to create a ‘safe, beautiful, creative space’ for Suri to hone her craft as a performer.
‘So it comes out of love for me to include someone who I love dearly,’ Holmes said. ‘It was very meaningful to me to have her there, because she’s my heart.’
Ever the protective mother, Katie also revealed that she has tried to protect Suri from the spotlight because ‘she was so visible from a young age’ – after appearing on the cover of Vanity Fair with her parents as a baby.
Pictured: Dawson’s Creek actress Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise in Manhattan’s Soho neighbourhood in February 2024
Suri Cruise was seen wearing her mother’s denim jacket two months after their last outing in New York
What’s more, the pair are regularly pictured walking around New York in matching outfits – and have also been known to share clothes.
In February, the mother and daughter looked strikingly similar as they enjoyed a day out in Soho – with Katie wearing a dark denim jacket with cord collar, which Suri was then pictured wearing two months later.
Katie previously told ELLE magazine that she bonded with her daughter over clothes when Suri was only four years old.
The star explained: ‘Today I’m wearing brown suede pants, and she said, “I don’t like your pants.” But then she’ll say, “You’ve got to wear these shoes.” Or, “That’s so pretty, Mom. Wear that.” She’s got a great eye.’
No more money from Tom Cruise
Pictured: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes at their Italian wedding on the outskirts of Rome in November 2006
With her daughter now officially a college student, Katie Holmes is also facing a dramatic change in financial circumstances.
Following her split from Tom Cruise, the star received £10m – as well as a $38,000-a-year child support agreement. At the time of their 2006 wedding, Katie was said to be worth around $10m.
Over the past 12 years, the star has received $400,000 for raising Suri alone – but is reportedly no longer entitled to child support now that their daughter is at college and a legal adult.
In 2012, Tom, now 62, said he was ‘deeply saddened’ that his younger wife Katie had filed for a separation.
He revealed the former Dawson’s Creek actress had initiated the split, bringing a dramatic end to one of Hollywood’s most high-profile romances.
‘This is a personal and private matter for Katie and her family,’ Holmes’s lawyer Jonathan Wolfe said in a statement to People magazine at the time. ‘Katie’s primary concern remains, as it always has been, her daughter’s best interest.’
Following her split from Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes (pictured in June 2005) received £10m – as well as a $38,000-a-year child support agreement
Pictured: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes seen leaving the actor’s son’s basketball game with baby Suri in March 2007
A spokesperson for Cruise, who was at the time in Iceland filming Oblivion, said: ‘Kate has filed for divorce and Tom is deeply saddened and is concentrating on his three children.’
The actress filed documents in New York citing ‘irreconcilable differences’. Katie also asked for legal custody, primary residential custody and a ‘suitable amount’ of child support from her husband, TMZ reported.
Ahead of their 2006 wedding, the couple signed a 100 page pre-nuptial agreement which stipulated that Katie would get nearly £2million ($3million) for every year of the marriage.
If their marriage had lasted more than 11 years, Holmes would have received half of Cruise’s fortune – which was estimated to be £160million ($250million) at the time of their divorce.
As such, it appears that Katie has stepped up her workload in the past year in anticipation of no longer having a financial tie to Tom Cruise, who is estimated to be worth £470m.
In the months leading up to her final child support payment, Katie Holmes collaborated with luxury denim brand APC on a fashion collection.
Weeks later, it was announced Katie would also be joining the cast of Poker Face, an Emmy-award winning Peacock series starring Natasha Lyonne and Adrien Brody.
After InTouch reported Katie ‘actively looking for work’ ahead of the child support payments ending, the star’s attorney spoke to Radar Online and blasted the publication’s ‘obvious misrepresentations’.
Love Life of extremes
Pictured: Katie Holmes with ex-boyfriend Jamie Foxx at the 2019 Met Gala – weeks before they announced their split
As well as her change in personal and financial circumstances, Katie’s love life also operates in extremes – with either intensely private relationships or short-lived romances.
Following her split from Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes was first romantically linked to Jamie Foxx in 2013 and kept their relationship strictly private.
At the time, it was reported that Tom had enforced a rule in their divorce papers that prevented Katie from dating publicly for five years.
To complicate matters further, Jamie was also a friend of Katie’s ex Tom Cruise, who had introduced them at a football match in 2005.
Tom and Jamie reportedly became friends while starring in the 2004 film Collateral and news of his romance with Katie sent fans into a frenzy.
Pictured: Tom Cruise with his ex-wife Katie Holmes and friend Jamie Foxx at football game in 2006
Although the couple denied their romance several times, they did appear together at a Pre-Grammy party in 2018 (pictured)
Although the pair denied their romance several times, Katie sent tongues wagging in 2015 when she was pictured attending Jamie’s surprise birthday party at Le Bilboquet in New York.
After pictures emerged of them holding hands, Jamie insisted they were still ‘just friends’.
Once Tom’s five-year dating clause came to and, Katie and Jamie did appear together at a Pre-Grammy party in 2018 and then again at the 2019 Met Gala – before calling time on their relationship weeks later.
A patron overheard the Dawson’s Creek actress at a restaurant telling a friend that they’d been on their own for a while.
‘What Jamie does is his business — we haven’t been together for months,’ she reportedly said.
A representative for the actress later confirmed that they had split in late May, only weeks after the couple made their red carpet debut at the the Met Gala.
At the time, it was reported that Jamie had been unfaithful – although this was never confirmed.
That week, Jamie had been spotted leaving a nightclub in Los Angeles accompanied by Sela Vave, 21, who’s 30 years his junior.
‘It has been many years of him stepping out with other women,’ a source close to Katie told USWeekly.
‘He’s disrespectful and their lives were different. His partying ways don’t fit with hers as she’s focused on raising her daughter and working.’
Meanwhile, long-distance was also believed to be a factor in the breakdown of their relationship – as Katie lives in New York while Jamie is based in LA.
After this, Katie dated restaurateur boyfriend Emilio Vitolo Jr. for eight months – but split because of their ”different schedules and different commitments’.
Pictured: Katie Holmes spotted out for a walk on her 42nd birthday with her boyfriend Emilio Vitolo a day after a heavy snow storm in New York
Pictured: Katie Holmes and ex-boyfriend Emilio Vitolo Jr seen heading out to eat in New York City
The way they were: They went Instagram official in December with a photo shared by Emilio with the chef calling Katie ‘the most amazing, kindest, beautiful person’
An insider told USWeekly: ‘Katie and Emilio really enjoyed their time together — it just simply didn’t work out. She’s focusing on being a mom and her upcoming projects.’
‘He works in New York in the restaurant business and she’s obviously a busy actress who just was away for some time filming,’ the source said.
Katie and Emilio were first spotted together in September 2020 and appeared to be on a fast track to love as they were nearly inseparable the first few months of their relationship.
‘She feels so blessed to be with a centered, down-to-earth, kindhearted companion who isn’t affected by the fame and puts happiness and traditional values first,’ a source told USWeekly at the time.
On her birthday in 2021, Emilio shared a touching black-and-white photo of his girlfriend and wrote: ‘The most amazing, kindest, beautiful person. Every time I see your face, it makes me smile.’
Katie Holmes and ex-boyfriend Bobby Wooten III attend “Alone Together” premiere in June 2022
Bobby Wooten III and Katie Holmes attend the Chloe Womenswear Spring/Summer 2023 show – before their split three months later
Following this romance, Katie then dated musician Bobby Wooten III for almost a year.
The pair were first spotted kissing and holding hands in New York in April 2022 before making their red carpet debut the following month.
Over the summer, the couple traveled to The Hamptons where Katie was Bobby’s plus one at a friend’s wedding and met his family.
‘Katie spent time with Bobby’s family, who really liked her,’ a source told Us about the event at the time.
The person added that the movie star ‘was very unassuming and kind to everyone.’
It was also reported that, ‘Whenever they would go without seeing each other, they would kiss and be very happy to be together again.’
However, the couple are believed to have split around December – with a source telling Us Weekly: ‘They just didn’t work out together for the long run.’
Career Flops
Pictured: Katie Holmes seen filming All We Had in August 2015. The movie was the first she had ever directed
The film (pictured) received lukewarm reviews – with the New York Times saying it would have worked better as a TV series
Katie has also struggled to match the success of her early career – and now predominately writes and directs her own works.
While her Dawson’s Creek co-star Michelle Williams has gone strength to strength in Hollywood and been nominated for five Oscars, Katie’s professional works have gone largely under-the-radar.
Hollywood stardom seemed to beckon in the wake of Dawson’s Creek, and when she landed a part in Batman Begins in 2005 it seemed to be the start of her transition from TV star to movie star.
In the same year, she appeared in black comedy Thank You For Smoking, which was nominated for a Golden Globe, and in the role of a seductive reporter who will do anything to get a story, she finally seemed to be shrugging off Joey Potter.
It was also the same year she met Tom Cruise, and the couple welcomed their daughter Suri and married the following year.
Certainly for the next few years, her high profile relationship overshadowed her acting efforts, with her big screen career still never quite igniting.
She jumped around between genres, starring in crime caper Mad Money, offbeat comedy The Extra Man, and The Romantics – a twentysomething drama – but each movie has flopped in the US. In the UK Mad Money went straight to DVD, the rest were note released.
When she took on the role of Jackie Kennedy in the TV series The Kennedys in 2011, it was mooted as a career defining role, with a source telling the Mail at the time: ‘It was her dream gig and she fought harder to get that role than for any other part in her career.’
However, The History Channel, which produced The Kennedys for $25 million, pulled the plug on the show, reportedly after criticism from some of JFK’s closest friends, his daughter Caroline Kennedy and his niece, Maria Shriver, over the series’ historical accuracy and its focus on the 35th US President’s peccadilloes, notably his adultery.
Having been turned down by other US cable networks, The Kennedys landed on the obscure film channel Reelz, a network.
While she reprised the role for a second installment The Kennedys: After Camelot in 2017, critics were unimpressed and likened the series to Dynasty.
More successful was Holmes’ foray into theatre. She appeared on Broadway in autumn 2008 in a supporting role in a revival of Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons, but this too failed to develop into anything further despite four years of singing and dancing lessons and a reported desire to star in a musical.
A fashion line, Holmes & Yang, she started with her friend and stylist shut down in 2014, with Katie stating that she was foucsing on motherhood and acting and couldn’t give it the time it deserved.
Pictured: Jim Sturgess and Katie Holmes in the 2022 rom-com Alone Together, which was set in the pandemic
Pictured: Katie Holmes as Joey Potter in the hit TV drama Dawson’s Creek, which aired from 1998-2003
She’s since turned her hand to directing, making her debut with All We Had – a drama about a single mother who is struggling to support her teenage daughter – in 2016.
The film received lukewarm reviews – with the New York Times saying it would have worked better as a TV series.
In 2022, Katie wrote, directed and starred in the Covid rom-com Alone Together opposite Jim Sturgess, who played Dexter Mayhew in the One Day movie.
It made a very modest $21,575 at the box office worldwide, although it would have amassed more revenue after being made available on streaming services.
The Hollywood Reporter deemed the movie about two strangers spending lockdown together ‘superficial’ in places, the critic said it came to a ‘felicitously, sweetly and satisfyingly moving’ conclusion.
However, Variety wasn’t so gushing – and said the drama, which was not a box office success, ‘should have stayed in quarantine’.
Right now, she has a capsule collection in collaboration with minimalist Parisian brand APC and has a part in Captivated, which tells the story of Calabrian mafia boss who kidnaps the grandson of one of the richest men in the world, Jean Paul Getty.
Holmes plays the victim’s mother who the kidnapper develops feelings for, and with Al Pacino on board it may just be the boost her career needs.
