SPLITSVILLE: Onetime glamour couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are headed for the divorce court. Picture: Getty Source: AP
WHEN Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes married to great fanfare and with much opulence in an Italian castle in November 2006, talk not only centred on the bride's wedding dress but also on her prenuptial agreement with the groom.
The details? For each year the couple stay married, the Dawson's Creek actress collects $3 million - to a maximum of $33 million after 11 years - as well as their palatial home in California.
Then, if their marriage had lasted more than 11 years, Holmes would have received half of Cruise's reportedly $250 million fortune.
After filing for divorce less than six years later, according to the agreement, Holmes should only be entitled to $15 million as well as the couple's $35 million Beverly Hills mansion. But with an estate worth upwards of $275 million, Holmes is expected to seek more and there is already speculation as to how much she will collect when the papers are signed.
Sources say the 33-year-old is asking for a "suitable amount" of child support, as well as a division of property, though no mention was made of the prenuptial agreement in divorce papers.
After Holmes' lawyer announced her client was filing for divorce, representatives for Cruise, 49, released a statement saying he was "very sad" and "did not see this coming".
The fact that she issued a solo statement speaks of some heat around the final extinguishing of the marriage.
The pair have not been seen together in public for almost three months - they were last pictured on April 5 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Holmes failed to attend any of the premieres of her husband's latest film Rock of Ages, despite Cruise's constant protestations of love for his wife.
The final arguments seem to have been over where Cruise was going to spend his 50th birthday on Tuesday. He told her he was planning to be on the set of his latest film Oblivion, in Iceland, which was the last straw.
Holmes had frequently been pictured looking drawn and exhausted during her marriage. One source said she had been "utterly miserable with Tom for months, if not years".
Indeed, the row over his birthday followed another bust-up over what Holmes felt were embarrassingly bad taste pictures of him on the cover of W magazine last month.
He was dressed - or rather undressed - as the rock star Stacee Jaxx, the character he plays in Rock of Ages. Two half-dressed blondes were wrapped around him.
Holmes was apparently "speechless" with disgust and felt the pictures laid both of them open to ridicule.
New York divorce attorney Vikki Ziegler told Hollywood Life that because of the prenup, Holmes stands to lose millions and will need to use their daughter Suri as a pawn to get more money.
"Most of the estate is Tom's. She'll have to go for a lot of child support," Ms Ziegler said.
"She'll have to show that Suri has nannies, cars, activities, clothes, hair appointments. That a hefty amount each month is needed to maintain Suri's lifestyle."
Shortly after they married in 2006, the couple paid $30 million for a lavish nine-bedroom home in Telluride, Colorado, to which they were later rumoured to have added a $10 million bunker.
They also own an upmarket apartment in New York's Manhattan, where Holmes is currently said to be holed up with Suri, while Cruise films in Iceland.
A $5 million home in Sussex, England and a villa in Italy's Lake Como bought from friend George Clooney for almost $7 million adds to the couple's estate.
Mission: Impossible actor Cruise likes to indulge in expensive hobbies and has over the years collected three aircraft, several cars and a 60-foot yacht.
After the couple married, he bought Holmes a luxurious wedding gift in the form of a Gulfstream IV-SP, about which she famously said: "It's like a bus, only quicker." Cruise also owns an Aviat Pitts S-2B biplane and a vintage World War II P-51 Mustang bearing a decal reading "Kiss Me, Kate".
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