Tom Cruise hasn’t been lonely since breaking up with Katie Holmes. He’s been secretly dating fellow Scientologist Laura Prepon, who plays a lesbian drug dealer on “Orange Is the New Black.”
P.R. reps for the two denied any romance in November after the actors were spotted enjoying a cozy dinner at the Manor Hotel in Los Angeles.
However, my source on the Left Coast says Cruise and Prepon are still seeing each other, but they are being extremely careful to keep it secret. “It’s the buzz on the set of her show,” the insider told me.
The British magazine Grazia reported last fall that Cruise, 51, picked up Prepon, 34, in a vintage car and had a bottle of 1979 Merlot waiting on the table when they arrived at the Manor Hotel.
“They spent three hours laughing and joking. It’s clear Tom is smitten and after the date he was on cloud nine,” the mag reported. “They had their second date at the restaurant, too, meeting for Sunday brunch, and then she accompanied him a few days later to a dinner party at John [Travolta]’s home.”
But Cruise’s hardworking publicist quickly tried to squelch the story. “They see each other at some functions, but they are not dating,” an insider told Us Weekly. Reps for Cruise and Prepon continued to deny the romance to me on Wednesday.
Cruise — after his failed marriages to Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman — reportedly auditioned women as potential brides before picking third (and now ex-) wife Katie Holmes, who converted to Scientology at Tom’s insistence.
Prepon, who dated “Malcolm in the Middle” actor and fellow Scientologist Chris Masterson for years before a reported breakup in 2012, might be a better match.