It's hard to believe how quickly Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' little girl, Suri Cruise, is growing up! Katie has been known to be super reserved since her split from the 57-year-old Mission Impossible star in 2012. While that means keeping herself and Suri out of the spotlight most of the time, she made an exception in celebration of Suri's 14th birthday.
Katie posted two photos in celebration of Suri's special day. The first was a banner made of what appear to be wooden letters spelling out "Happy Birthday!" Katie added a short and sweet caption to the post: " Happy Birthday Sweetheart!!!!!!! I am so blessed to be your mom. May this year be incredible! ."
The second photo features Suri sitting in a chair, facing away from the camera. She's wearing a pink tie-dye shirt, and a flower crown adorns the top of her long, brown hair. "Birthday vibes ," Katie wrote.
Katie and Suri enjoy an incredibly close mother-daughter bond that seems to be weathering the early teenage years well. There's a bit of mystery surrounding the relationship between Tom and Suri, however. Many believe the father and daughter have been estranged for years, but reports indicate Tom might be trying to mend the relationship.
This article first appeared on LittleThings in April 2020.
Suri Cruise is 14 years old! Katie Holmes took to Instagram to celebrate her only child's special day on April 18. " Happy Birthday Sweetheart!!!!!!! I am so blessed to be your mom. May this year be incredible! ," she wrote.
Later, she shared a rare shot of the birthday girl. Suri is facing away from the camera, but her long brown hair, topped with a crown of fresh flowers, makes her unmistakable. She's wearing a set of bracelets and a pink tie-dye T-shirt.
There's a lot of curiosity about Suri thanks to her super-famous parents. Katie Holmes is a huge star in her own right. She broke out as the wholesome girl next door in Dawson's Creek and has enjoyed an active and interesting acting career ever since.
Today, she's getting ready to direct her second film and deeply enjoying motherhood, as she revealed in an interview with InStyle last month.
"I love her so much," she gushed. "My biggest goal has always been to nurture her into her individuality. To make sure she is 100 percent herself and strong, confident, and able. And to know it."
"She came out very strong — she's always been a strong personality. She'll pick an activity and work her butt off until she's really good at it," she continued. "Then she's like, 'OK, I'm going to try the next thing.' She's very focused and a hard worker."
Certainly, that's a trait she could have inherited from either of her parents. Katie gets most of the credit where Suri is concerned. It's hard to deny she's a budding fashionista, inspiring fan pages of her short but well-documented life.
"I have to say, I did recently see some fan site [about her] posted when she was a baby, and it was very intense. We were followed a lot when she was little. I just wanted her outside, so I would walk her around to find parks at, like, 6 in the morning when nobody would see us," Katie revealed. "But there's one video where I'm holding her — she was 2 at the time — and she starts waving at the cameras. She's pretty special."
Equally well documented was the roller-coaster ride of a relationship between Suri's parents. When Katie first opened up about a childhood crush on Tom Cruise, she was engaged to fellow actor Chris Klein. A year later, Katie and Chris split up. Less than a month later, Katie and Tom stepped out together as a couple for the first time.
It was only a month later that Tom made his infamous appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, jumping on the couch and proclaiming his love for Katie. By that summer, the couple was engaged. By fall, they were expecting, and sure enough, Suri arrived in the spring.
Tom and Katie married in November 2006. They were one of the most popular couples in Hollywood until things went sour. Katie filed for divorce in June 2012. Eleven days after she filed, representatives for the couple announced they had come to a custody agreement. Katie would take primary custody of Suri, with Tom having visitation rights.
While there were a few sightings of Tom with Suri right after the divorce, the two haven't been seen together since. It's been largely assumed that father and daughter are estranged. Scientology played a major role in the dissolution of Tom and Katie's marriage, and some believe it's why he allegedly hasn't had an active role in Suri's life.
Multiple sources associated with Scientology have asserted that the organization would forbid contact with Suri if she wasn't being raised in the church. They've pointed to Tom's close bond with his two older children with ex-wife Nicole Kidman as an example. While Bella and Connor, both adults, are involved in the church and close with Tom, they're believed to have a lesser bond with Nicole.
Neither Tom nor Katie has publicly commented on reports of estrangement between Suri and Tom. A source tells Hollywood Life that Tom does send Suri gifts each year for Christmas and her birthday.
"Suri gets a gift from Tom on her birthday every year and this year was no exception," the source says. "It’s not something Katie talks about though, beyond saying that Tom does always come through with gifts for things like birthdays and Christmas. She’s very tight-lipped."
It was around last Christmas that rumors of a reunion between Tom and Suri began going public. There were reports indicating that he had reached out around the holidays. Allegedly, he saw a photo of Suri and began to feel upset about all the time they'd missed over the years.
Some reports even claimed that Tom asked Katie for Suri to spend the holidays with him and that she was playing the middle man in organizing a reconciliation. A representative for Katie shut down the rumors. "I told the magazine this was untrue but of course they made up a story anyway," her rep allegedly told Gossip Cop.
It seems that Tom and Suri's relationship will continue to be a mystery to the public. One thing is very clear, however. Whenever Suri is spotted out and about, she looks like a happy, healthy, well-adjusted teen. Regardless of her relationship with her dad, Katie deserves enormous credit for giving Suri as normal a life as possible.
