Tom Cruise has been gifting colleagues with the infamous Christmas Coconut Cake for decades, but it really feels like the lore of this thing has exploded over the last few years. As if there’s Santa’s List, then Tom’s List, and even people who have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting on Tom’s List have become obsessed with knowing who in Hollywood is on it. The cake is known far and wide for its sender, and for reportedly being very very good. (Well, known far and wide except to my mother; we popped into a bakery and asked about a display, to which the attendant said “It’s the Tom Cruise cake!” My mother replied, “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. It sounded like you said ‘Tom Cruise Cake.’” “That IS what I said.” And then there was just blinking in confusion. We bought cookies instead.)
Personally, I’m not a fan of coconut with my desserts — yup, even when it comes to macaroons at Passover. But if I were to land on Tom’s List somehow, that may not be a problem, as it turns out he’ll edit what confection he sends you under certain circumstances. His 2017 The Mummy costar Jake Johnson just revealed Tom sends him a gingerbread house instead, after Jake built up the nerve to admit that he can’t eat dairy.
Jake Johnson is revealing he actually doesn’t receive Tom Cruise’s popular Christmas Cake!
The 47-year-old actor starred with the action star in the 2017 movie The Mummy, and shared that he only received the cake once. However, he doesn’t go empty handed and gets something else in it’s [sic] place.
“I did a movie with @tomcruise in 2017. Soon after I started getting his legendary holiday cake,” he wrote on Instagram. “A few years back I admitted to him that I had a dairy issue. It wasn’t a great moment admitting to my film hero that I couldn’t stomach dairy so the cake was being wasted on me.”
Tom took note and switched up his annual gift for Jake with something very sweet!
“The following year he sent a gingerbread house with my kids names on it. He does it every year since. We love it,” the New Girl star shared. “It’s become part of our xmas tradition and holiday decoration. So this is my public thank you and a shout out to the best #1 on a callsheet in the game. Thank you @tomcruise”
Several celebrities have raved about Tom’s annual gift, while one was cut from the list!
Tom Cruise is a living lesson in professionalism. He makes sure to meet and learn the names of everyone on a film crew; he shows up early to press lines to give time to each journalist; he pointedly goes to see “all the movies” in movie theaters; and he maintains this ever-evolving cake list, including swapping out for other desserts when necessary, as Jake Johnson describes. This is all super thoughtful and a superlatively professional way of conducting himself, and it’s noticeable how well Tom does it by the fact that so many other people in the industry don’t operate the same way. All of this good work makes for a lot of goodwill for Tom. So consider me to be Tom Cruise’s personal grinch, because my first reaction to Jake’s post was, “How lovely. I wonder which dessert he sends to Suri. And Shelly Miscavige.” Call me grinch, call me petty bitch, call me madam! (For my musical theatre peeps!) But I cannot forget the cult he is a part of and benefitting from, or the way he just dropped contact with his daughter. Or for that matter, because I’m an older grinch bitch, the way he treated Nicole Kidman during and after their divorce. Tom Cruise does a lot of really good things, AND there’s more to the man that should not be swept under the rug.
PS — Not a Cruise colleague? No problem! CB found this copycat recipe! You can also order it from Gold Belly.
Photos credit: Joe Sutter, PacificCoastNews/Avalon