Before TomKat and Our Nic, there was Mimi Rogers.
Mimi Rogers was Tom Cruise’s first wife, the woman that those who grew up in the 1980s thought was the luckiest in the world.
This was pre-Scientology, when there had been no couch-jumping, and Tom Cruise was a the Next Big Thing and jumping from hit to hit — from The Outsiders to Risky Business to Top Gun.
During the 1980s Tom lived with actress Rebecca De Mornay and had an affair with Cher (according to Cher herself).
Rogers was six years his senior, a divorcée and a professional poker player. It is rumoured she introduced him to Scientology.
In 1987, they married in a top secret ceremony; the tiny group of attendees included Tom’s mother and his best man, Emilio Estevez, his co-star in The Outsiders.
The marriage quickly became rocky and the couple split in 1989, divorcing in February 1990.
Tom married Nicole Kidman later that year. Reportedly, Rogers was not too upset. She told one interviewer that their sexual chemistry had disappeared.
“Tom was seriously thinking of becoming a monk,” she said. “He thought he had to become celibate.”
As Mimi and Nicole show, there is life beyond being Mrs Tom Cruise. Nicole went on to become one of the most famous actresses in the world, marry and have two daughters.
Mimi’s career was not so lustrous — she appeared in movies such as Austin Powers in the 1990s, posed for Playboy, and starred in a few television shows.
Despite this, her personal life is just as happy as Nicole’s. She has been living happily with Chris Ciaffa for 10 years, and they have two children.
She doesn’t like being reminded of her marriage to Tom. In 1995, she told People magazine: “I’m waiting for the moment when I don’t have to talk about that … name any more.”
