A shocking admission in a legal deposition from Tom Cruise admitting that Scientology was a factor in Katie Holmes leaving him. INSIDE EDITION has the latest.
He didn't see Suri for 110 days.
That's the bombshell admission from Tom Cruise in a just-leaked deposition in his $50 million defamation lawsuit against two magazines that claimed he "abandoned" daughter Suri.
Cruise says in the deposition that he took Suri to Disney World in August 2012, but admits he didn't see her again until Thanksgiving—a total of 110 days.
He got combative when a lawyer asked: "It really doesn't substitute for being able to be there, does it?"
"No, it doesn't," Cruise snapped back. "Things change. Like in any divorce, where you work out schedules. It certainly does not mean that I've abandoned my daughter."
Cruise was also asked why he didn't come to New York City for Suri's first day of school.
"If Suri asked me to be there, I would have been there," he responded.
Dylan Howard, Sr. Editor of radaronline.com, told INSIDE EDITION, "Cruise, in his defense, said that his daughter Suri never asked him to. And, indeed, he and Katie Holmes discussed the prospect of him attending, but chose not to to avoid the potential media circus."
The deposition obtained by the website radaronline.com confirms what most observers suspected all along—that Katie Holmes divorced Cruise to protect Suri from the Church of Scientology.
"Listen, I find that question offensive," an angry Cruise said. "You know, I, I find it very offensive. There is no need to protect my daughter from my religion."
A lawyer for the magazines hit back, asking, "Ms. Holmes has never indicated in any way that was one of the reasons she left you?...To protect Suri from Scientology?"
"That was one of the assertions. Yes," Cruise answered.
Howard said, "The lawyers pressed Tom Cruise on that, and for the first time ever, he finally admitted that one of the assertions Katie Holmes made was that she left him in order to get Suri away from Scientology."
We're also learning there was all-out warfare during Tom and Katie's divorce, according to emails that are only now seeing the light of day, thanks to the lawsuit.
In one email, an aide to Tom Cruise accused Katie of orchestrating a smear campaign against him. It claimed Katie's publicist would routinely call paparazzi, stating: "every time (Katie) gets ready to leave the building, as the doormen are always surprised how they suddenly show up when she is about to leave."
"They accuse Katie Holmes' camp of mudslinging, and indeed, leaking stories to the media in an attempt to destabilize the image of Tom Cruise," stated Howard.
