Tom Cruise drops sister as publicist following rough summer
Peter David

LOS ANGELES—Superstar Tom Cruise has dropped his sister as his movie publicist and hired a top Hollywood flak after coming under intense media fire for publicly mixing his religious views with his movie-making. Cruise, 43, announced Monday that his sister Lee Anne DeVette would hand over publicity for him and his production company to veteran spokesman to the stars Paul Bloch, following a tough summer in which his image took a beating.
DeVette will now exclusively oversee Cruise’s soon-to-expand involvement in charitable causes, notably those linked to the Church of Scientology of which Cruise is a devout member. “Lee Anne has done a wonderful job on behalf of myself and Cruise-Wagner Prods. over the last few years,” Cruise said in a statement received Monday by AFP.
“But she has always expressed a desire to oversee and expand the day-to-day activities of my charitable endeavours,” he said, announcing that Bloch would now handle his own publicity and that of his Cruise-Wagner Productions.
“I am thrilled at this new opportunity to oversee Tom’s philanthropic endeavours,” DeVette said in the same statement. “I know how important Tom’s charitable goals are to him, and I am looking forward to assisting in raising the profile of the good works that he does on behalf of children’s health issues, mentoring, literacy and other social reforms, as well as the general betterment of the human condition,” she added.
The switch comes 20 months after Cruise sacked his longtime Hollywood publicist Pat Kingsley and hired his sister, who had for years worked closely with the actor at his Cruise-Wagner Productions. But Cruise’s closely-protected image sailed into rough waters this summer when the usually very private actor began giddily expressing his love for actress Katie Holmes in interviews, including one where he boisterously leapt up and down on US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey’s sofa as he told how much he loved Holmes.
The unusual antics sparked widespread speculation in the media over whether the expression of love was genuine or a publicity stunt. He then used his “War of the Worlds” global media tour to announce his engagement to Holmes in June and then proceeded to talk publicly — and sometimes combatively — about his Scientology beliefs. Cruise and Holmes, who have been dating since May, announced last month they are expecting their first baby.