Tom Cruise and The Bizarre Gifts That Keep Giving (Giving His Friends The Creeps, That Is)
What fun it must be to have a baby, get married, or turn one year older if you’re lucky enough to be chummy with Village People Fan Club president Tom Cruise. As a card-carrying member of Tom’s inner circle of disco-dancing Xenu-fearing tribe of pals, new mom Nicole Kidman had the joy of receiving one of Cruise’s trademark lavish gifts — as People reports, the birth of little Sunday Urban prompted Nicole’s ex-partner in bearded crime to send over a huge “high-end” gift basket filled to the brim with fancy baby must-haves. But after reviewing Tom’s history of gifting his nearest and dearest with incredibly bizarre and, at times, inappropriate items, we suspect his inclusion of “Giraffe baby blankets” might actually be a subtle swipe at Kidman’s tendency to resemble the long-necked drowsy animal. Cruise’s unnerving presents of the past to fellow Tom-ophiles like Dakota Fanning and Katie Holmes, after the jump.
As we noted a few months ago, Tom decided that the best way to kiss and make up with old pals Victoria and David Beckham was to offer the couple a weekend vacation at his own home. Nothing says "Procreate for the good of Scientology mankind!" like a few sleepless nights spent at an eerie secluded Hubbard boot camp disguised as a celebrity's mansion. And a few years ago, Cruise made a similar misstep by presenting his tiniest pocket spokesperson, Dakota Fanning, with a cell phone for her 11th birthday. Sure, Dakota's parents wouldn't let her use it and her lack of any actual friends made it entirely useless, but the alien-esque Fanning sure loved prancing down the street "pretending" to talk to imaginary contacts!
Though it wasn't exactly freaky or strange, Tom's gift of a Segway to Hollywood's resident Paranoiac J.J. Abrams left the mystery man disturbed (but mysteriously!). As Abrams told the NY Times in a 2006 interview, his favorite movie-star gift is indeed the Segway, but his quote frightens us just a tad: "Tom Cruise gave me one of those two-wheel Segway scooter things. I'm still trying to get him back for that." Um, because it was programmed to scoot directly towards COS headquarters no matter which direction you pointed it? Last and, in a way, least, future fugitive Katie Holmes has had the fortune of receiving more than a few of Tommy's bizarro presents. As a wedding gift, Cruise reportedly gave his new bride a $20 million dollar jet, even though Katie couldn't fly the thing and was pregnant at the time. But by far the most classic gift on the list is Tom's genius idea for Katie's 27th birthday present: a "DVD compendium of every movie he has ever acted in," inscribed with little handwritten notes from Tom on each film. Because nothing says Happy Birthday like a copy of Magnolia with "It's not going to stop. No, it's not going to stop. 'Til you wise up." scrawled on it by Tom himself.