Jenny McCarthy Says ‘Digger’ Star Tom Cruise Tried to Lure Her and Jim Carrey Into Scientology, and Her Wedding Story Gets Stranger

The Jenny McCarthy and Tom Cruise Scientology story starts with one of the most talked-about celebrity weddings of the 2000s. On November 18, 2006, Cruise married Katie Holmes at a castle near Rome, Italy, in front of roughly 150 guests. McCarthy, then dating Jim Carrey, was among them.

Nearly 2 decades later, she is revisiting what she saw. McCarthy and Carrey were close enough to the couple to socialize with them, and she says that firsthand view left a lasting impression. Her memories came out during a candid podcast conversation this week.

On the October 15 episode of her podcast, ‘The Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg Show’, McCarthy spoke with guest Anne Gollert Hill, who left Scientology after 20 years in the church. During that discussion, McCarthy said she believes Cruise tried to lure her and Carrey into Scientology. It’s important to note that these are her personal recollections and beliefs, not confirmed facts.

She said she felt the attempt began at the rehearsal dinner, where Cruise introduced her to Scientology leader David Miscavige. McCarthy and Carrey were seated directly across from the bride, the groom and their immediate circle, and she described what she saw as an apparent misstep that she thinks offended Miscavige. She added that she believes she was meeting him at his most charming, as someone who was trying to recruit them.

McCarthy also described a series of invitations. She said Cruise would call Carrey a few times and suggest the couple visit the Aspen house, and that Carrey declined because he feared the trip was a way to draw them in. Carrey and McCarthy, who dated from December 2005 until their split in April 2010, had also worked with Cruise’s former wife Nicole Kidman a decade earlier on ‘Batman Forever’.

McCarthy was careful to say something kind about Cruise too. She called him a very nice human being, although she said he always seemed programmed. That mix of warmth and unease runs through the whole account.

Her stories from the wedding weekend are vivid. McCarthy recalled that Holmes’ maid of honor gave a warm speech about high school parties and sleepovers, which she called very Midwest and adorable, while Miscavige, who served as Cruise’s best man, delivered a long speech portraying the newlyweds as an exceptionally powerful celebrity couple.

At the rehearsal dinner, she said, she asked to hold the couple’s baby, Suri, who was then 7 months old, and the entire room stared at her. McCarthy compared the moment to ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and said she thought she was in the belly of the beast. She added that she had never been so scared in her life.

McCarthy also shared what she observed about Holmes. She said that during the wedding Holmes still seemed like herself, but that a shift appeared once the marriage began. She described Holmes as looking like a deer in headlights and said she would sometimes pull her aside at parties to ask if she was okay.

She also recalled that Cruise often arrived with a group that followed him from room to room, which she believes made Holmes uncomfortable. Holmes and Cruise were married for 6 years. These observations are McCarthy’s own impressions, and she did not present them as proof of anything beyond what she personally witnessed.

Cruise is currently doing a series of rare press appearances to promote his new film ‘Digger’, and he has reportedly not been asked about Scientology in those interviews. Among the reports reviewed, there was no response from Cruise or from the Church of Scientology to McCarthy’s comments. That leaves her account as one person’s perspective.

Cruise has been a Scientologist since the late 1980s, when his first wife, Mimi Rogers, introduced him to it. The church and Cruise’s involvement have drawn scrutiny for decades, which is why any new account involving a famous guest list tends to get attention. Still, nothing here changes the fact that the story rests on McCarthy’s memory and belief.

It also shows how long these stories can linger. A single wedding weekend has produced new headlines years later, and the people at the center of them rarely respond. Whether Cruise or Carrey ever weighs in remains to be seen.

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