Katie Holmes pictured for first time in public with new man Jamie Foxx as Tom Cruise’s bizarre divorce rules end
Couple's romantic barefoot stroll on the Malibu coast not only represented their first openly public outing – but also her freedom from Tom and Scientology
LOOKING as happy as she does beautiful, Katie Holmes glows in a floral dress at a New York fashion show yesterday.
Coming a day after she was snapped hand in hand with Baby Driver actor Jamie Foxx, she is the picture of a woman in love — and one who has finally been able to turn off Cruise control.
For the 38-year-old, the romantic barefoot stroll on the Malibu coast not only represented the first openly public outing with her boyfriend but also her freedom.
She has been banned from having a public relationship for the past five years under the strict terms of her quickie divorce from superstar Tom Cruise, 55, a prominent member of the Church of Scientology.
The former Dawson’s Creek actress has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep her new relationship secret, resorting to wearing wigs and hats to meet Jamie, 49, after they reportedly started dating in 2013.
Another divorce clause meant any boyfriend was not allowed near 11- year-old Suri, her daughter with Tom, while another prevented her from talking about their marriage.
Now those terms have expired, she looks like a huge weight has lifted.
Katie shared a picture of her and Suri on Instagram this week, laughing together in a restaurant, with the caption: “My sweetie."
Beside them is another place setting, with the chair pulled out and a glass of wine, hinting that Jamie is the man behind the camera.
After escaping the legal clutches of Tom and the Church of Scientology, the couple seem to be subtly, but effectively, flipping them the V-sign.
A pal recently told a US magazine of Katie’s feelings for her then mystery man, saying: “She loves him from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.”
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After Katie walked away from Tom in 2012, it was suggested she had been afraid her husband wanted to ship Suri off to Sea Org — said to be a brutally strict Scientology faction — and was fed up of the strict rules imposed on their marriage by the church. She bought a cheap mobile to speak to lawyers, including her dad Martin, behind Tom’s back.
Her biggest fear, according to Ron Miscavige, whose son David is Scientology’s leader, was that Suri would turn against her after the split — just as Nicole Kidman’s daughter with Tom, Isabelle, had done.
The church has a “disconnection policy” where all ties are severed between a Scientologist and friends or family opposing the religion.
Her priority was, therefore, to protect her relationship with her daughter.
Although it looked like Tom was in control of the divorce, Katie seemed to be calling the shots.
She got what was most precious — Suri. Katie secured sole custody and the divorce stipulated she would not be enrolled in the church.
Everything else — Katie’s career and love life — was secondary.
She told a US mag this year: “My child is the most important person to me and her upbringing is paramount to my work right now. It’s very important I’m present and she has a stable, innocent childhood.”
Dad Martin also helped Katie get £3.6million in child support for Suri and £3.8million for herself.
She also benefited from a £40million pre-nup in which she got £2million for each year of marriage, plus a trust fund for Suri.
So what did Katie do next? She moved to trendy Chelsea in New York and became the model mum, teaching her mini-me to ride a bike, taking her to dance classes and treating her to ice-cream.
Katie later bought a six-bedroom property for £2.9million in a gated community of Calabasas, in LA, where the Kardashians hail from, and she and Suri split their time between the east and west coasts.
Having come out of a bizarre, Scientology-centric marriage, where she was reportedly auditioned for the role of Tom’s wife by the church and forced to remain silent during childbirth, the Ohio-born girl was apparently living a much quieter life.
But behind the scenes there was increasing talk of blossoming romances. First came jazz musician Peter Cincotti in 2013, then Alexander Skarsgard, her co-star in The Giver, in 2014. Both were, unsurprisingly, fiercely denied.
Then there was her friendship with Tom’s Collateral co-star Jamie, who she met via her then husband in 2006.
A video of Katie dancing with Jamie at a New York charity gala in 2013 first set tongues wagging.
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Then a picture of them holding hands in a recording studio in 2015, legs entwined, seemed to confirm the romance.
But still they dismissed the claims, with Jamie insisting it was “100 per cent not true”.
Their friends, however, were not so tight-lipped. After Katie attended a secret birthday bash in New York for the actor in 2015, a pal said: “Katie is so in love. She isn’t dating other men.”
Jamie’s reality TV star friend Claudia Jordan, said: “He is very happy with her.”
As the terms of Katie’s watertight divorce neared expiry, the couple were more open.
In April they were spotted having dinner in New York, then Katie joined her man on the set of Robin Hood — out next year — in Paris the following month, checking into a hotel through a secret door.
This week, five years and two months after her divorce from Tom, Katie has let out a huge sigh of relief as she can finally date Jamie in the open.
Her demeanour as they paddled together was subtler than when Nicole punched the air with delight after finalising her divorce from Tom in 2001, but the message was the same . . . FREEDOM.
She has officially swapped Tom, who has starred in six Mission: Impossible films and scales buildings for a living, for a real-life action hero.
Last year Jamie, who played Ray Charles in the 2004 biopic, Ray, ran to a burning car which crashed outside his southern California home.
He had reportedly told the trapped driver: “You’ve got to help me get you out, because I don’t want to have to leave you. You’ve got angels around you.”
Jamie later said: “I don’t look at it as heroic. I look at it like you just had to do something. And it just worked out.”
While Tom announced his relationship with Katie by bouncing on to Oprah’s TV couch and shouting, “I’m in love” a month after meeting her, Jamie is more understated.
He has always kept his relationships private, refusing to discuss the identities of the mothers of his two daughters, Corinne, 23, and Annalise, eight.
And this week, when a photographer asked him about his clinch with Katie on the beach, he simply smiled and gave the snapper a big thumbs-up.
Let it be a lesson to Tom: Actions speak louder than words.