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As one of the biggest nights in Hollywood, the Oscars is certainly star-studded with the crème de la crème of A-list celebs.

And yet, there was one major film star who decided to skip this year’s awards ceremony.

The Top Gun: Maverick actor and producer Tom Cruise was notably absent, which is odd considering his action film, which has been lauded for basically revitalising the film industry post-COVID, was one of the Best Picture nominees.

Rumour has it that his absence was down to the presence of his former spouse Nicole Kidman.

Those rumours have been running rampant despite it originally being reported that he was busy filming Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part II.

If that was true, surely he would have allowed himself at least one night off from his notoriously busy shooting schedule to honour himself and his stunt-making, jet-wrangling, bike-over-mountain-throwing talents.

Top Gun: Maverick didn’t bag the Best Picture award and Cruise didn’t win the Best Actor award on Sunday night, but the film did win Best Sound, and it would have been nice to see the resident noise-maker on stage to accept the award along with his crew.

But alas, a source said that “Tom was not there because she [Nicole] was there, and he did not want a run-in”, notes SheKnows:

The source’s observation that Cruise wanted to skip the awards ceremony his ex attended reminds us so much of how much scrutiny was placed on the former couple during their marriage. While the two rarely discuss their relationship in the public eye, Kidman has been fairly forthcoming about her struggles following her divorce from Cruise, and even revealed in an October 2018 New York Magazine essay why she married her Eyes Wide Shut co-star when she was just 22.

“I married for love,” Kidman wrote, “but being married to an extremely powerful man kept me from being sexually harassed. I would work, but I was still very much cocooned. So when I came out of it at 32, 33, it’s almost like I had to grow up.”

It has been decades since the couple split – Nicole and Tom were the It couple of the 90s having married in 1990 till 2001 – so the recent New York Post story about the Oscars is obviously turning a few heads, noted CinemaBlend.

However, there is also another rumour about why Tom skipped the biggest night in Hollywood.

According to an insider report from Variety, the 60-year-old actor stayed away to avoid filmmaker/comedian Judd Apatow’s wrath.

Apatow was helping host Jimmy Kimmel write his material for the ceremony, and since Apatow took aim at the Top Gun: Maverick star with some brutal jokes at the Directors Guild of America Awards, Tom didn’t want to become fodder for even more jokes, it seems.

Either way, Tom is doing his utmost to stay cool.

I guess we will have to wait to see him when the latest Mission: Impossible hits theatres on July 14 – just how he likes it.

[sources:cinemablend&sheknows]