Tom Cruise is not going to let some tabloid take advantage of his marriage turmoil. The actor is threatening to sue National Enquirer which ran a cover story this week claiming that he secretly over-controlled his family inside their "house of horrors".
Enquirer wrote that Cruise verbally abused wife Katie Holmes and kept their daughter Suri locked in a tiny, windowless room when she was a baby. The tabloid indicated that Cruise was a monster and that she was tortured during the five year marriage.
On Wednesday, July 11, Cruise's attorney Bert Fields sent Enquirer publisher American Media a letter which demanded the issue to be retracted because it is "disgraceful and lurid". Fields said the false story will cost the actor "hundreds of millions of dollars of professional and personal damages, for which we intend to hold American Media, and everyone who participated in the perpetuation of this scurrilous attack, jointly and severally liable."
Also in the letter which THR got a copy of, Fields stated, "Your cover announces, as a fact, that 'THE REAL TOM CRUISE IS A MONSTER.' Mr. Cruise is certainly not a 'monster.' He is a caring father, a hardworking actor and, above all, an honest, decent man. Your cover tells the world in huge red and yellow headlines that Mr. Cruise's home is a 'HOUSE OF HORRORS!' Mr. Cruise's home, which you have pictured, is by no means a 'house of horrors'. It is a gracious and loving family home."
Fields demanded that Enquirer "immediately retract each and every one of your false assertions about Mr. Cruise with the same prominence and emphasis as you gave your original false and defamatory assertions."