If someone were to wake up now from the coma, into which he fell in the early 2000s, he would expect that the stars of “Dawson’s Creek” (1998-2003), James Van de Beek and Katie Holmes (who turned 45) would be actors with successful careers.

For Katie Holmes this, unfortunately, is not the case… Her photo appears in fashion magazines, but is ignored by film magazines. Hardly anyone could name three of her films in the last decade, but fashionistas could name one look of hers that they admire.

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Her photos went viral the day she hailed a taxi wearing a jacket that revealed her cashmere bra underneath. The Khaité bra, which cost $545.42 (€500), sold out within an hour – shortly after, a cheap version was available at Zara. The reason for Holmes’ change from actress to fashion icon is surprising: Tom Cruise. Her relationship with the superstar – the pair were nicknamed TomKat – was so controversial that Vanity Fair magazine claimed the pair were the result of a Scientology casting process.

Whether or not this is true, the relationship clearly changed the public’s perception of both of them and irreparably tarnished Holmes’ career. Before her marriage, she had worked with directors like Ang Lee, Curtis Hanson and Christopher Nolan. After the divorce, she did not appear in any memorable work.

Holmes was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1978 and has 4 other siblings. She graduated from Notre Dame Academy and had been accepted to Columbia University, but her true calling was acting. He sent an audition tape to the casting for Ang Lee’s film The Ice Storm (1997) and got the part. She made her big screen debut opposite Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver. “I thought things would be really fun. My first day in Los Angeles was January 21, 1996. My mom and I were driving down Santa Monica Boulevard and we saw a big sign that said ‘Golden Globes.’ So we went and sat in the stands in the rain to watch the movie stars arrive. We couldn’t believe what we had fallen into.”

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Back then, she probably couldn’t have imagined how often she would walk the same red carpet herself. But the phone didn’t ring again as quickly as she’d hoped and she came to think her career was over. As he stated on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon,” “I thought, this might be all there is. But it was okay, because I was like, “You know what, it’s okay. It was an amazing experience. And I can tell my grandkids and I’ll be fine». But the success was not to fade so quickly. Another audition for her had charmed Kevin Williamson, who pioneered the slasher revival of the 1990s as the screenwriter of Scream (1996). At the time, Williamson was looking for stars for “Dawson’s Creek.”

In early 2005, the actress and Tom Cruise began a whirlwind romance. According to “Vanity Fair”, the Church of Scientology “put its hand” in this relationship… After the “failures” of his relationships with Nicole Kidman and Penelope Cruz, the right person had to be found. There was a clue given in a 2004 Seventeen magazine article in which Holmes (then engaged to American Pie actor Chris Kline, whom she dated for three years) stated that when she was a teenager, she thought she would end up marrying Tom Cruise.

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Six months later, Holmes breaks up and appears for the first time in Rome with Tom Cruise. The TomKat phenomenon was “born”, much to the delight of the media. “When I met Tom I was completely in love and, yes, I admired him growing up – he’s Tom Cruise!” she told The New York Times. A few weeks after the couple’s first photo together was released, Cruise appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s show. Who doesn’t remember that? The interview that became an example of how to destroy your public image. Moments like Tom Cruise kneeling down, grabbing the presenter’s hands and jumping on the sofa became popular and made people think he had lost his mind (including Oprah herself, who called it outright).

Nearly 20 years later, perhaps the most reprehensible and memorable was the way he dragged his wife-to-be onto the set, as if she had no identity of her own: Cruise left the set, walked into the dressing room, and ushered her in. Whether she was prepared or not, the whole situation seemed awkward.

Nothing could stop this… “tsunami” of love. Cruise proposed to her with a yellow diamond ring at a restaurant atop the Eiffel Tower. Their wedding took place in the castle of Odescalchi, 35 kilometers north of Rome. The guest list included Will Smith, Jim Carrey, Jennifer Lopez, John Travolta and David Beckham and Victoria Beckham. This fairytale wedding marked the beginning of the downfall of both actors’ careers. In Holmes’s case it was almost definitive. In Cruz’s case, a period of wandering in the desert began from which he struggled to recover. If their marriage caused turmoil, the birth of their daughter Suri attracted even more interest. We first saw their daughter on the cover of “Vanity Fair” in October 2006. It was the magazine’s second best-selling issue (the first featured Jennifer Aniston’s confessions after her divorce from Brad Pitt).

The actress’ appearances were limited to smiling – after her husband – and her films were increasingly insignificant. In an incomprehensible decision, she gave up her role in a new series of “Batman” and the role went to Maggie Gyllenhaal. According to Holmes, she preferred to star in the comedy “Mad Money” (2008).

Those who believed that the couple had no future together had to wait six years for justice: in June 2012 the couple got a divorce. Like their marriage and parenthood, their breakup is also surrounded by rumors. People said that a condition in the divorce settlement was that she could no longer appear in public with another man for five years and could not talk about her marriage or Scientology – otherwise, she would lose €5 million.

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