Tom Cruise's former manager has opened up about the actor's "terrible temper" in a candid interview about her time working with the Hollywood star.
Eileen Berlin is a retired show business executive who worked with Cruise and even gave him a place to stay when he was starting out in his acting career.
Now 82, Berlin opened up about Cruise's ambition, obsession with his looks and his explosive short temper.
"Tommy had a terrible temper," Berlin told the Daily Mail. "He harbored a lot of anger at his natural father. He was moody and would get angry in a snap of your fingers."
"It was like something was smoldering and it would boil up and explode. I put it down to his insecurity."
Berlin said Cruise once threw an album of magazine clippings at her when she presented it to him.
"I presented him with an album with all his publicity articles from teen magazines for his 19th birthday. He screamed, 'I don't want to be in the teen mags.'"
She added: "He had told me he considered himself an adult, not a teen idol. He threw the album hard at me and it hit me on the cheek."
Newsweek has contacted a representative of Cruise for comment.
Cruise's temper made headlines in December 2020 when he was recorded ranting at the crew of his upcoming film Mission: Impossible 7 over COVID guidelines.
"We are the gold standard," Cruise shouted on the recording. "They're back there in Hollywood making movies right now because of us. Because they believe in us and what we're doing.
"I'm on the phone with every f****** studio at night, insurance companies, producers and they're looking at us and using us to make their movies. We are creating thousands of jobs, you motherf******. I don't ever want to see it again. Ever!"
"Am I clear? Do you understand what I want? Do you understand the responsibility that I have? Because I will deal with your reason, and if you can't be reasonable and I can't deal with your logic, you're fired," Cruise screams in the audio. "That's it. That is it. I trust you guys to be here."
The outburst prompted a slew of reactions and memes online at the time.
Berlin described Cruise as a "perfectionist" and spoke of his ruthless ambition to make it in Hollywood.
"What I have never seen is a real display of happiness in Tommy. He was always very, very ambitious, very, very determined to be a star. And that made him a perfectionist," she said.
"That's what drove him when I managed him and I'm sure that's what drives him now."
