Jenny McCarthy Claims Tom Cruise Tried to ‘Lure’ Her and Jim Carrey Into Scientology After His 2006 Wedding
Jenny McCarthy is pulling back the curtain on one of the most talked-about celebrity weddings of the 2000s — and making a startling claim about what went on behind the scenes. The actress and television personality says Tom Cruise tried to “lure” her and her then-boyfriend Jim Carrey into the Church of Scientology in the days surrounding Cruise’s 2006 wedding to Katie Holmes.
Jenny McCarthy, 53, made the claims on the October 15 episode of her eponymous podcast, The Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg Show, during a conversation with former Scientologist Anne Gollert Hill, who spent 20 years in the organization’s elite Sea Org. According to Jenny McCarthy, Cruise, 64, “tried to bring me into Scientology” while she was dating Carrey — and she believes the wedding itself was part of the effort.
Jenny McCarthy Describes the Aspen Invitations
According to Jenny McCarthy, the recruitment attempts began even before the wedding. She recalled that Cruise would call Carrey and say, “Hey, why don’t you guys come to our Aspen house?” — invitations Carrey was reluctant to accept. “Jim was like, ‘We can’t go. They’re just going to want to try to, you know, lure us in,'” Jenny McCarthy said. “They’d already tried with him before and he turned them down.”
The couple did, however, accept the invitation to Cruise and Holmes’ star-studded wedding in Bracciano, Italy, in November 2006 — an event Jenny McCarthy says placed her directly inside the inner circle she now describes with unease. At the rehearsal dinner, Jenny McCarthy and Carrey were seated directly across from the bride and groom and their “immediate circle.” It was there, she says, that Cruise introduced her to Scientology leader David Miscavige.
The “Scientology Stare” at the Rehearsal Dinner
The most vivid moment Jenny McCarthy described came during the rehearsal dinner itself. A nanny brought Cruise and Holmes’ seven-month-old daughter Suri — now 20 — to the table, and Jenny McCarthy, a self-described “baby person,” blurted out, “Can I hold the baby?”
What happened next, she says, stunned her. “The entire room went silent,” Jenny McCarthy recalled. “It looked like Rosemary’s Baby… I got the Scientology stare.” Holmes “slowly” obliged and handed Suri over, but Jenny McCarthy said she was too uncomfortable with the unwanted attention from the other guests to enjoy the moment. “I just went, ‘Hi, baby,'” she said, tentatively bouncing the infant on her lap, “because no one was speaking anymore. No one was talking.”
Only after Jenny McCarthy returned the baby to Holmes did the room return to normal. “Everyone went back to their conversations, and I thought to myself, ‘Okay, I am in the belly of the beast right now,'” she said — adding that the experience left her wondering, “What were they thinking when I was holding ‘the baby?'”
What Jenny McCarthy Says About Tom Cruise and Scientology
Jenny McCarthy was careful to describe Cruise himself as friendly even as she detailed what she believes was a sustained recruitment effort. “He was very nice,” she has said of the Top Gun star, who is one of the most prominent members of the Church of Scientology — a controversial organization whose practices have been scrutinized for decades.
The claims represent Jenny McCarthy‘s own account and recollection of events from nearly two decades ago. Jenny McCarthy and Carrey began dating in 2005 and ended their relationship in 2010, while Cruise and Holmes divorced in 2012. Holmes has in recent years been linked to artist Jason Bard Yarmosky.
Page Six reported that it reached out to representatives for Cruise and Holmes for comment but did not hear back before publication. USA Today also said it reached out to representatives for Cruise and Carrey for comment. Neither Cruise’s nor Carrey’s representatives had publicly responded to the claims as of this writing.
Why Jenny McCarthy’s Claims Are Exploding Online
The story has ignited a firestorm across social media and entertainment outlets, with Page Six, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, and Just Jared all picking up Jenny McCarthy‘s account. Cruise’s 2006 wedding to Holmes remains one of the defining celebrity moments of the 2000s, and any new detail about it — particularly one involving Scientology — carries enormous viral weight.
Part of the fascination is the wedding itself. Cruise and Holmes married on November 18, 2006, at the 15th-century Castello Odescalchi in Bracciano, Italy, in a lavish Scientology ceremony attended by Hollywood royalty. The guest list included Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, Brooke Shields, and numerous others. Seven-month-old Suri — whose very existence had been the subject of intense tabloid speculation before her first official photographs were released — was the unannounced star of the weekend.
For Carrey, Jenny McCarthy‘s account fits a pattern she says he had already established: politely but firmly keeping the church at arm’s length. Jenny McCarthy said approaches had “already tried with him before and he turned them down” — suggesting that by the time of the wedding, the comedian had long since decided where he stood. Carrey, who has since become known for his outspoken views on a wide range of subjects, has never publicly confirmed or denied Jenny McCarthy‘s version of events.
Jenny McCarthy‘s own life has moved on dramatically since those days. She and Carrey split in 2010 but have remained friendly, and she later married actor and New Kids on the Block star Donnie Wahlberg in 2014. She has become a fixture of daytime television as a judge on The Masked Singer, while her SiriusXM show — now in its latest podcast iteration — has become the venue for exactly this kind of headline-making revelation. Her conversation with Gollert Hill, a former insider who spent two decades in the Sea Org, was originally framed as an explainer on the organization; instead, it produced what may be the most sensational Jenny McCarthy headline in years.
For Jenny McCarthy, a former Playboy Playmate turned Masked Singer judge and longtime television host, the interview with Gollert Hill was meant to explore Scientology through the eyes of someone who lived inside it. Instead, it became a vehicle for one of the most sensational celebrity claims of the year — one that Jenny McCarthy herself framed as a near miss she is glad she avoided.
Read more: Jenny McCarthy and Donnie Wahlberg’s House: Inside Their $2.8M Illinois Mansion Listing
Whether Cruise’s representatives respond remains to be seen. For now, Jenny McCarthy‘s account — the Aspen invitations, the wedding seating, and the infamous “Scientology stare” — has given the internet its latest obsession.
And the story may not be over. Podcast clips of Jenny McCarthy describing the “Rosemary’s Baby” moment have been circulating widely on social media since the episode aired, with listeners dissecting every detail of her two-decade-old recollection. If her representatives or Cruise’s camp break their silence, expect this one to run for days. Read Page Six’s full report on Jenny McCarthy’s Scientology claims.
Photos: Duncan Arsenault and other Flickr contributors via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY / CC BY-SA 2.0).
