Jumping the couch

Tom Cruise jumps on a couch during the filming of an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show.



Cruise has made several bold expressions of his feelings for Holmes to the media, most notably the "couch incident" which took place on the popular talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show of May 23, 2005. In that instance, Cruise "jumped around the set, hopped onto a couch, fell rapturously to one knee and repeatedly professed his love for his new girlfriend."This scene has been parodied in numerous venues in film (Scary Movie 4), on TV (Family Guy). The "couch incident" was voted #1 of 2005's "Most Surprising Television Moments" on a countdown onThe term "Jumping the Couch," fashioned after "jumping the shark," is used to describe someone "going off the deep end" in public. The term is usually synonymous with a nervous breakdown accompanied by often bizarre or unintentionally humorous behavior in public. It enjoyed a short-lived popularity, being chosen by the editors of the Historical Dictionary of American Slang as the "slang term of the year" in 2005 and by the nonprofit group Global Language Monitor as one of its top phrases for the year.


Parodies

As noted, the scene has been parodied numerous times, including:

• A YTMND reworking of the scene to make it look like Cruise kills Oprah with Sith lightning emanating from his hands.


• A mashup of James Frey's infamous 2006 appearance on Oprah and Cruise's appearance was released by Best Week Ever, in which Oprah appears to call Cruise a liar.


• The 2006 film Scary Movie 4 parodies the Oprah scene.

Litigation related to gay rumors

• The Daily Express newspaper — During his marriage to actress Nicole Kidman, the couple endured public speculation about their sex life and rumors that Cruise was gay. In 1998, he sued a British tabloid that alleged that the marriage was a sham designed to cover up his homosexuality.


• David Ehrenstein - Tom Cruise's lawyers threaten to sue Ehrenstein for his book titled "Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928-1998", that discussed Cruise's appeal to both men and women


• Chad Slater — In May 2001 he filed a lawsuit against gay porn actor Chad Slater (aka Kyle Bradford). Slater had allegedly told the celebrity magazine Actustar that he had engaged in an affair with Cruise. Both Slater and Cruise denied this, and in August 2001 Slater was ordered to pay $10 million to Cruise in damages.


• Michael Davis — He also sued Michael Davis, a magazine publisher, who alleged that he had photographs that would prove Tom Cruise was homosexual; this suit was dropped in exchange for a public statement by Davis that Tom Cruise was heterosexual.

Publicist

Cruise's more open attitude to Scientology has been attributed to the departure of his publicist of 14 years, Pat Kingsley, in March 2004. He replaced her with his sister, fellow Scientologist Lee Anne DeVette, who served in that role until November 2005 . He then demoted his sister and replaced her with veteran publicist Paul Bloch, from the publicity firm Rogers and Cowan. Such restructuring is seen as a move to curtail publicity about his Scientology views, as well as the hard-sell of his relationship with Katie Holmes backfiring with the public . DeVette explained that it was her decision to work on philanthropic projects rather than publicity.