Tom Cruise carries his daughter, Suri, into Chelsea Piers. (ACE/INFphoto.com)
Katie Holmes’ childhood friends and family are opening up about the actress’ conversion to Scientology when she married Tom Cruise, and the rift it caused among those closest to her.
Kari Somo, 32, a former classmate of Holmes’ at Catholic Notre Dame Academy in Toledo, Ohio, told Web site Celebuzz that the star’s transformation from a strict Catholic to Scientologist was “jarring — and caused severe rifts within her family.”
“We thought it was very shocking when [Katie] turned to Scientology, since we were all brought up Catholic,” Somo, now a restaurant manager, told the site. “I know [Katie’s] parents had an issue with it. I don’t think they were very happy with it.”
Another former classmate, Angela Domschot, said of Holmes’ conversion to Scientology when she married Cruise: “It was so bizarre that she got involved in Scientology,” adding, “We were all shocked when she turned to Scientology, but when you’re besotted with someone, I guess you’ll do what they want.”
Domschot is now a police officer in Toledo.
Holmes’ childhood friends also recall that the future “Dawson’s Creek” star “didn’t even have a boyfriend at school,” according to the report, because “her parent’s strict Catholic principles discouraged it.”
The report says that Holmes usually only interacted with boys through plays that were organized by Notre Dame’s sister school, all-boys St. John’s Jesuits.
Thomas Higgins, who’s married to a cousin of Holmes’, tells Celebuzz that Holmes now rarely returns to Toledo.
“Katie used to babysit for us a few years ago,” Higgins said. “But now she only comes back for funerals. We only get to see her at sad occasions and bad events… often, the family only know she’s been in town after the event. She keeps it hush-hush, and her side of the family is quite large.”
After Holmes filed for divorce from her “Mission Impossible” star husband, she recently enrolled their daughter, Suri, 6, in a Catholic girls school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.