The lawyer of the two US magazines being sued by Tom Cruise has quizzed the Hollywood megastar about time he spent with rumoured girlfriend Cameron Diaz rather than his daughter Suri.
In a $50 million lawsuit, Tom is suing the magazines for defamation over claims he “abandoned his 7-year-old daughter Suri” after his divorce from Katie Holmes – a claim that he strongly denies.
In a transcript of video footage of a contentious deposition, held on September 9 in LA, the defendant’s lawyer Elizabeth McNamara quizzed the 51-year-old about whether he attended a private birthday party for his Knight and Day co-star in 2012.
The questioning aimed at supporting the magazines claim that Tom chose to spend time shooting films and taking 24-hour trips for Scientology instead of seeing his daughter, which led to him not seeing her for 110 days following his divorce.
“You went to birthday parties,” McNamara said in the transcript obtained by Radar Online. Tom responded with, “I don’t recall going to a birthday party.”
“Cameron Diaz’s birthday party?” McNamara quizzed. “I didn’t go to Cameron Diaz’s birthday party,” Tom insisted.
“You’ve been reading the press,” he added. “You can’t believe everything you read.”
McNamara continued with her questioning and implied that he had indeed attended the party and was photographed with her on the night at the Coworth Park Hotel outside London.
“You can’t believe everything you read though,” Tom said. “Photographs do not tell a story.”
To which McNamara replied, “Well, actually, I think on that particular thing then your lawyers, who were acting as your PR agent at that time, confirmed it, or your PR agent did, that you were with Cameron Diaz for her birthday.”
Undeterred, Tom yet again insisted, “I did not go to Cameron Diaz’s birthday party.”
Back in November, Cameron spoke about the evening in an interview with UK talk-show host Graham Norton, addressing rumours about the pair.
“I happened to bump into Penelope Cruz, Javier, Tom and his son in a hotel and joined them for dinner,” she said.
“At midnight I said, ‘I’m 40!’ so we took pictures and then said, ‘Goodnight, see you later, blah, blah, blah,’ and I haven’t seen him since. But the next thing I know, apparently I’m dating him and it’s full-on and he’s coming after me.”
Tom has labelled the magazines’ claims “patently false” and said he “no way cut Suri out of my life – whether physically, emotionally, financially or otherwise”.
The defamation case will begin at a court in New York next year.
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