NOT ROCKING FOR THE AGES

Bombshell: Katie Holmes Dumps Tom Cruise

By Elizabeth C.

GOSSIPS HAVE BEEN PREDICTING THE BREAKUP FOR YEARS, but the news still shocks: Katie Holmes has filed for divorce from A-list Scientologist Tom Cruise.

“This is a personal and private matter for Katie and her family,” Holmes’ attorney Jonathan Wolfe tells People. “Katie’s primary concern remains, as it always has been, her daughter’s best interest.”

Never one to be outdone, Cruise had his spokesperson released a statement, too: “Kate has filed for divorce and Tom is deeply saddened and is concentrating on his three children. Please allow them their privacy.” The couple had not been seen together publicly since February’s Oscars. Now the big question: who will get custody of Suri, their 6-year-old daughter?

The couple have been the subject of tabloids ever since Cruise bounced on Oprah’s couch while declaring he was smitten with the Dawson’s Creek star. The previously perky starlet became uncharacteristically glassy-eyed and sullen as their relationship developed, and gossips frequently suspected Scientology was behind the change.

Cruise, who turns 50 July 3, is the accused cult’s most-famous follower.

Holmes “has looked happier than she has in a long time, smiling for the cameras, walking around Manhattan, and hanging out with pals — which ironically is exactly how she was living her life before Cruise mysteriously swept her off her feet in April 2005,” Yahoo reports today.

Cruise has been previously married twice before: he divorced his first wife Mimi Rogers in 1990. His marriage to actress Nicole Kidman, with whom he has two adopted children, ended in 2001. This was 33-year-old Holmes’ first marriage.

Personally I became suspicious that the two weren’t doing well when Cruise repeated his by now hackneyed lines about Holmes being an “extraordinary person” in an interview with Playboy. No doubt Holmes is a prize, but after five years of marriage you’d think Cruise would be able to acknowledge the ordinary difficulties of living together.