When Katie Holmes announced her engagement to American Pie star Chris Klein in December 2003, the actress was on cloud nine.
“I think every little girl dreams about (her wedding),” cooed Holmes to Seventeen magazine in October 2004, just after wrapping her final season as tomboy Joey Potter on the WB coming-of-age drama Dawson’s Creek. “I used to think I was going to marry Tom Cruise.”
Hold up–did she really say that?
Six months later, TomKat announced their engagement–and make Hollywood history. Could Holmes’ intimate reveal in the glossy pages of Seventeen have been the foreshadowing tabloids failed to seize?
Apparently so. As the Holmes and Klein bloom was coming off the rose, so was Tom Cruise’s brief romantic liaison with voluptuous Columbian model Sofia Vergaras. But nothing could prepare the celebrity gawker world for the next turn of events–Cruise and Holmes went public with their romance, despite their 16-year age difference. Cruise started jumping on couches, proclaiming his love, while the camera-shy Holmes simply beamed by his side.
Within days, polls in both People and US Weekly magazines revealed a majority of readers were skeptical about the sincerity of the Hollywood couple’s newfound relationship. As the tabloids claimed their romance was nothing but a publicity stunt–since Holmes was starring in Batman Begins and Cruise in War of the Worlds—Cruise’s sister and publicist Lee Anne Devette then announced the couple was engaged. On June 17, after a whirlwind three-month romance, Cruise had proposed to Holmes at the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
No matter, the skeptics pressed on. Just days after the couple announced their engagement, British bookmakers began accepting bets on Cruise and Holmes divorcing in 2006, offering odds of 5/1. The bookmaker also offered gamblers the opportunity of making an evens bet on the couple having a baby.
Bookmakers could not possibly have been on to something, right? Hello, suckers.
Earlier this month, the Cruise camp announced the young bride-to-be was expecting the couple’s first child. Holmes pulled out of her upcoming project, Shame on You, because of fears the stress of filming would harm her unborn child. She took up knitting instead. Cruise, meanwhile, continues filming Mission: Impossible 3.
Now, with a new baby and impending nuptials, don’t expect Cruise and Holmes to drop out of the headlines any time soon. We’ve concocted a Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes interactive timeline to help you keep track of the couple’s tumultuous love affair.
