When Tom Cruise Almost Lost a Huge Fortune to His Divorce With Mimi Rogers

Tom Cruise and Mimi Rogers were the ‘It’ couple of the 80s, they met “at a dinner party” in 1985 as per Cruise who told Rolling Stone. Apparently, Rogers introduced the Top Gun actor to Scientology and they both got married in an intimate ceremony in May 1987. However, by 1989 their union ended in bitter separation, and the couple finalized their divorce in February 1990.
As per Nickiswift, Cruise lost $4 million on the settlement he reached with Rogers, his ex-wife. As per Stylecaster, right before the divorce, the Mission Impossible actor had earned the biggest paycheck of his career with the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun. The film made a whopping $356 million at the United States box office with Cruise taking a cheque of $2 million home.
There are various theories projected for the couple abruptly ending their marriage, Cruise stated they grew apart over time, “It was just two people who weren’t meant to work and it wasn’t what I wanted for my life,” he revealed in the book Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography by Andrew Norton.
As per Vanity Fair, Marty Rathbun, a former top-ranking Scientologist alleged the involvement of the organization’s leader, David Miscavige, in the divorce. Rathbun shared that Cruise split from Rogers and Kidman after pressure from the religious elder. Without giving away any detail, she said, “Both women got cold on Miscavige. He was integral to the breakup of the marriages.”
On this day in 1990 Tom Cruise divorces his first (of three) wife, the woman who introduced him to Scientology, actress Mimi Rogers pic.twitter.com/KUSUyNSKSf — Ken Reid (@KennethWReid) February 4, 2020
In March 1993 Rogers in an exclusive with Playboy hinted at being content with the huge settlement payout, “Finances aside, divorce just sucks,” she said. The Rapture actress also mocked Cruise’s choice of becoming a monk and mentioned it as one of the reasons for their divorce, “Here’s the real story,” she shared. “Tom was seriously thinking of becoming a monk. At least for that period, it looked as though marriage wouldn’t fit into his overall spiritual needs. And he thought he had to be celibate to maintain the purity of his instrument.” She also stated that her instrument “needed tuning.” However, she instantly backtracked from the statement later for fear of losing the $4 million settlement.
Image Source: Getty Images| Photo by Barry King
For his ventures, Cruise was being paid far less at the time of his first divorce. The lucrative paycheck he had ever received for a movie before the divorce was $3 million, which he had received for the 1988 films Rain Man and Cocktail.
His earnings quadrupled the year that he and Rogers parted ways, earning an incredible $9 million for Days of Thunder. That was just the start, of course. His Mission: Impossible franchise revenues would later bring him large sums of money, and according to Celebrity Net Worth estimates, he earned up to $200 million from Top Gun: Maverick with his total net worth currently estimated to be over $600 million.