It’s been two decades since one of the most iconic (or perhaps notorious) moments in pop culture history: Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah Winfrey’s sofa.
The interview has become a shorthand for celebrity eccentricity for good reason.
For those who don’t remember, the interview aired on May 23, 2005, around the same time Cruise was first making negative headlines for his association with Scientology.
He went on The Oprah Winfrey Show – then one of the biggest talk shows in the world – and discussed his new romance with Katie Holmes, whom he wed in 2006 and split from in 2012.
Cruise entered the studio to thunderous applause and was visibly ecstatic as he made his way towards Oprah. He was unusually animated, full of energy, and smiling broadly – something that was very unlikely for the actor.
As Oprah asked about his relationship with actress Holmes, Cruise responded with uncontained enthusiasm.
At one point, he stood on the couch, knelt on it, punched the air, and later jumped up and down.
Oprah laughed and said, ‘You’re gone!’ obviously concerned but trying to play along with whatever was happening.
Cruise then repeatedly professed his love for Holmes, calling her ‘extraordinary’ and saying he had never felt this way before.
He grabbed Oprah’s hands and pulled her from her chair, continuing his excited display.
The audience responded with laughter, applause, and some visible confusion, but it was the virality of the clip afterwards that truly stoked fan reaction.
YouTube had only recently come to exist in 2005, and the clip of Cruise was one of the platform’s first-ever viral videos, a stark contrast to the likes of TikTok in 2025, where there’s a new viral trend every other day.
At the time, with so much less content on the web, viral moments lasted a lot longer (see: 2007’s Charlie Bit My Finger), and Cruise’s strange interview became the definitive celebrity moment of the year.
News broadcasts, entertainment shows, and late-night comedians latched onto Cruise’s bizarre, uncharacteristic energy levels, with the couch-jumping mocked on Saturday Night Live, South Park, and talk shows for weeks.
His exaggerated declaration of love for his new girlfriend felt unrelatable or even suspicious to some viewers, sparking speculation about Cruise’s authenticity, mental state, and ties to Scientology.
Some even wondered if the Church of Scientology had arranged his match with Holmes.
A recent Reddit thread unpacks the cultural impact of the interview, with one user asking on r/popculturechat: ‘How big of a deal was the Tom Cruise incident on The Oprah Winfrey show at the time?’
Other users quickly responded to assure the original poster that it was seemingly all anyone could talk about that year.
YugisMillenniumBSBcd wrote: ‘It was massive! It was one of the last big pop culture things before youtube really took off. Everyone was talking about it without having actually seen it, so people thought it was more shocking than it really was. It didn’t help we all knew he’s got several screws loose with his Xenu worshipping BS, so the idea of him jumping around the Oprah set like Top Gun: Kangaroo was 10000% believable.’
amomentintimebro agreed: ‘Oh HUGE. I remember watching it and the media storm after. He came off as a total crazy person and everyone was super weirded out.’
Aware-Impression8527 chimed in: ‘HUGE. There was no social media so celebrities were still kind of remote and moments held more weight (and didn’t happen every minute of the day). He had this reputation for being so straight and restrained so to see him jump up and down on a couch was wild.’
In the years since the couch jump was seen around the world, Cruise and Holmes have divorced, and it’s believed he’s estranged from their shared teenage daughter, Suri, who recently graduated in New York.
She remains close with her mother, though, having dropped the ‘Cruise’ surname, as she now goes by Suri Noelle.
It was previously claimed that the 46-year-old Dawson’s Creek star filed for divorce from Cruise to protect Suri from Scientology, with Suri no longer a practising member of the organisation.
According to The Sun, visits between Cruise and his daughter ceased around 2013, although he previously claimed he ‘never cut [her] out’ of his life.
Cruise, currently rumoured to be dating Ana de Armas, also shares adopted children Bella and Connor with ex-wife Nicole Kidman, to whom he was married from 1990 to 2001.
Away from the dramatics of fatherhood, Cruise has managed to rehabilitate his public image.
The Mission: Impossible actor, who recently reprised his role of Ethan Hunt for The Final Reckoning, has even been called ‘the last movie star’ by those who will forgive just about anything from a man who does his own stunts, whether it be hanging from a plane or plunging to the depths of the ocean (or whatever else he does).
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