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When it comes to Tom Cruise’s craft as an actor, he stands unmatched.

Even the revered director Steven Spielberg credited Tom with saving Hollywood, which is no small feat to pull off.

As an actor, Tom has continually pushed his limits, engaging in ever more audacious and hazardous stunts, all in pursuit of authentic, CGI-free entertainment grounded in realism.

There’s even a long-running joke in showbiz about how there’s nothing that Tom Cruise can’t do (or won’t do) to get the most realistic action shot. Race fast cars? Check. Jump from a helicopter? Check. Jump from an even higher helicopter? Check. Climb the tallest building in the world? Straddle himself to a plane as it takes off? Do parkour on skyscrapers? BASE-jump on a dirtbike? Check, check, and double-check.

However, there is one thing that the stunt man can’t do and that’s successfully and seamlessly open the doors of a prestigious sportscar.

Back in 2006, the dude rocked up to the premiere of Mission: Impossible III at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood driving his own Bugatti Veyron. Cruise purchased the car the year prior for an estimated $1.9 million.

The actor struggled to open the passenger side of the door, and the company was not happy. Now it has become another long-running joke/myth in showbiz – that Bugatti blacklisted Cruise in 2006 after this incident that was heard around the world.

Technically speaking, having Cruise drive himself to his big movie premiere in a Veyron was a huge win for Bugatti from a PR perspective – but then the guy struggled for what felt like ages to open the passenger door for his then-wife Katie Holmes.

Word has it that Bugatti felt like this 40-second snafu misrepresented the brand, so they banned Cruise from ever buying a car directly. Put in much simpler words, they thought that Cruise’s inability to open that door made it look as if the Veyron was a piece of clunk – all aesthetics and poor workmanship.

This remains an unfounded rumour as neither Bugatti nor Tom ever released an official statement. There’s no way of saying for sure that the Veyron was really Cruise’s or that he’d paid $1.9 million for it, just like we will never know for sure that Bugatti banned him because he couldn’t open the damn door.

It is possible though, as prestige carmakers like Bugatti or Ferrari have strict rules for the selection of their customers and even stricter guidelines for ownership. Consideration of how owners represent the brand after they take delivery is among those guidelines – so it is not unheard of for a famous person to fall foul and get an unofficial ban.

Bugatti for one, seemingly does not take ‘tarnishing’ the brand lightly, with further reports that the blacklist extends past Cruise to other celebrities like Floyd Mayweather, former F1 champion Jenson Button, and TV’s Simon Cowell.

[source:autoevolution]