Hollywood’s golden couple, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes call it quits

US: Fairytale Hollywood couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes announced Friday they were calling it quits after five years of marriage, ending an unexpected love story dogged by tabloid rumors. “Kate has filed for divorce and Tom is deeply saddened and is concentrating on his three children,” Amanda Lundberg, Cruise's representative, told AFP. “Please allow them their privacy to work this out.” “This is a personal and private matter for Katie and her family,” said Jonathan Wolfe, the attorney representing Holmes. “Katie's primary concern remains, as it always has been, her daughter's best interest.”

Cruise, who turns 50 on Tuesday, wed Holmes, 33, in a storybook Italian castle in November 2006 after declaring his love for the former “Dawson's Creek” star live on “Oprah” - famously hopping on a couch in the studio.

It was Holmes's first marriage and Cruise's third. They have a six-year-old daughter, Suri.

The “TomKat” split comes just 10 days after the “amicable” parting of US actor Johnny Depp and French singer/actress Vanessa Paradis, and will doubtless lead to renewed chatter about the pressures on Hollywood couples.

Holmes has admitted to having a teenage crush on Cruise, even saying she had put up a poster of the “Top Gun” star in her bedroom.

After a whirlwind courtship that culminated in a proposal under the Eiffel Tower in June 2005, what followed resembled a fairytale - at first.

AFP