Los Angeles, Jun 30 (Daily Telegraph): Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, the Hollywood couple whose marriage never quite convinced the sceptics, are to divorce after five years.
Holmes, 33, announced in a statement to a celebrity magazine that she had left her husband.
Cruise, 49, said he was 'deeply saddened' by the news. The couple have a six-year-old daughter, Suri.
Holmes is asking for sole legal custody of Suri, according to the celebrity website TMZ. She is said to have cited irreconcilable differences in her divorce petition filed in New York.
If Cruise contests her claim, the couple could face a high-profile court battle.
Holmes's lawyer, Jonathan Wolfe, said, "This is a personal and private matter for Katie and her family. Katie's primary concern remains, as it always has been, her daughter's best interest."
The pair signed a prenuptial agreement in November 2006, which guarantees Holmes a yearly sum. However, legal experts said Cruise could be prepared to give up a larger size of his pounds 160 million fortune if Holmes agrees to remain silent about the details of their marriage.
Such a deal would echo that of Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren. While they had a prenuptial agreement giving Miss Nordegren pounds 12 million a year, Woods is believed to have given her a settlement of almost pounds 100 million to avoid an "ugly" dispute in public.
Cruise remains one of the world's most bankable actors. The star of Top Gun and the Mission: Impossible franchise earned an estimated pounds 50 million last year alone and runs his own Hollywood production company. Michael Kelly, a leading Californian divorce lawyer who specialises in prenuptial agreements, said, "One thing you can rely on is that Tom Cruise will have an airtight prenup. This is a man who is in control of everything and the prenup will be pretty restrictive."
"He could choose to give Katie a bigger settlement, as Tiger Woods did. There is also the prospect of a custody dispute, which he will want to avoid."
This will be the third divorce for Cruise. He was married to Mimi Rogers, the actress, from 1987 to 1990 and to Nicole Kidman, with whom he adopted two children, from 1990 to 2001.
His relationship with Holmes, then an up-and-coming actress, began in April 2005. Two months later, Cruise used a press conference in Paris to announce that he had proposed to Holmes at the Eiffel Tower. The actor jumped up and down on Oprah Winfrey's sofa to demonstrate his love for Holmes.
The wedding took place in November 2006, a lavish affair in an Italian castle with guests including David and Victoria Beckham and Giorgio Armani.
The couple were last photographed together in February and Holmes was absent from Cruise's promotional tour for the film Rock of Ages.