It doesn’t quite rank up there with “Either those curtains go or I do,” but some of the last words of a deceased mobster may go down in their own kind of infamy: Tom Cruise is straight.
A new biography of the deceased con artist, jewel thief and art forger Johnny Fratto sees the former mobster recall his experiences coaching Cruise for his role as a pool hustler in 1986’s The Colour of Money. And while Fratto remembers Cruise being impressed by his criminal past, he also insists that the star is entirely heterosexual.
“Despite what rumours you’ve heard, I can vouch from firsthand experience that Tom Cruise is not a homosexual,” Fratto states.
In the book, Fratto describes an incident in which Cruise entered a Chicago nightclub and immediately put his arms around “two smoking hot party girls from Des Moines”.
“‘What’s going on, ladies?’ he asked with that mischievous superstar smile that made that f - - — millions of dollars,” Fratto recalls. “I had never seen women actually swoon in real life. . . these bitches swooned. If there was anything gay about Tom Cruise, I sure as f - - - didn’t see it, and neither did the girls from Des Moines.
Cruise has been at the centre of three high-profile lawsuits relating to his sexuality, including one in 1998 where he won a libel case against the Daily Express for falsely claiming that his marriage to Nicole Kidman was a sham to cover up his homosexuality.
In 2003, Cruise also successfully sued a French “erotic wrestler” named Chad Slater, who falsely claimed that the two had an affair which ultimately caused the end of Cruise’s marriage to Kidman. Slater, a Britney Spears fan and star of films including Hot Submissions and The Cockpit Club, denied the remarks that were attributed to him. Cruise also sued the publisher of a magazine who falsely claimed he had gay sex tapes featuring the star.
Cruise’s lawsuit at the time read: “While the plaintiff believes in the right of others to follow their own sexual preference, vast numbers of the public throughout the world do not share that view and, believing that he had a homosexual affair and did so during his marriage, they will be less inclined to patronise Cruise’s films, particularly since he tends to play parts calling for heterosexual romance and action adventure.”
Fratto’s biography, Now That I’m Dead, Here’s the Real Dirt, written by Mafia historian Matthew Randazzo V, also describes his encounters with the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Paris Hilton.
