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The Story Behind Suri Noelle Why Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' Daughter Dropped 'Cruise' · Stories Today

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  Speaker 1: Quick answer. Surrey, the twenty year old daughter of Tom
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Cruise and Katie Holmes, has legally swapped her surname from
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  Speaker 1: Cruise to Nol. The change surfaced through Pennsylvania voter registration records,
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  Speaker 1: and it's widely believed to be a nod to her
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: mother's middle name as she carves out her own identity.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Most people who have followed Tom Cruise and Katy Holmes
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  Speaker 1: over the years know their daughter only as a name
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  Speaker 1: attached to two very famous ones. That's beginning to change.
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  Speaker 1: Tom Cruise and Katy Holmes daughter Surrey drops her dad's
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  Speaker 1: last name, according to newly surfaced voter records, quietly but
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  Speaker 1: officially dropping Cruise from her name. Surrey, now twenty, in
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  Speaker 1: settling into student life at Carnegie Mellon University, has replaced
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  Speaker 1: it with Surrey Nol, and Nol just happens to be
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  Speaker 1: her mother's middle name. It isn't a dramatic reveals so
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  Speaker 1: much as something that's been building for a couple of years,
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  Speaker 1: but it has reopened a familiar conversation what Surrey's relationship
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  Speaker 1: with her father actually looks like now and how children
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  Speaker 1: of famous parents go about building a life that's genuinely
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  Speaker 1: their own once they're old enough to choose key takeaways.
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  Speaker 1: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes daughter Surrey drops her dad's
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  Speaker 1: last name. Her legal surname is now Knowl, not Cruise.
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  Speaker 1: According to voter registration records in Pennsylvania. The name first
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  Speaker 1: turned up publicly back in June twenty twenty four, printed
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  Speaker 1: in her high school graduation program. Nol is Katie Holmes
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  Speaker 1: middle name, and most people close to the situation see
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  Speaker 1: the choice as a tribute to her. Surrey and her
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  Speaker 1: father are said to have had a distant relationship for
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  Speaker 1: much of her life. Since her parents split in twenty twelve.
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  Speaker 1: She's now studying performing arts, specifically musical theater at Carnegie Mellon.
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  Speaker 1: Has Surrey legally changed her name, It looks that way.
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  Speaker 1: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes daughter Surrey drops her dad's
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  Speaker 1: last name In what appears to be a fully legal
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: document mented switch. Surrey registered to vote in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania,
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  Speaker 1: home to Carnegie Mellon, under the name Surrey Noll. That
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  Speaker 1: matters because Pennsylvania requires voters to register under their legal name,
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  Speaker 1: not a nickname or stage name. If the paperwork says Nol.
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  Speaker 1: The courts have already recognized it as such. What's less
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  Speaker 1: clear is exactly when the change went through or where.
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  Speaker 1: Before moving to Pennsylvania for university, Surrey lived in New York,
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  Speaker 1: and New York allows name change petitions to be sealed,
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  Speaker 1: either automatically or on request. That would go some way
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  Speaker 1: toward explaining why nothing about this showed up in public
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  Speaker 1: records earlier. Also read why John Cena and shay shariatze
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Day rarely appear together in interviews. The first hint came
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: at her graduation. People who were paying close attention noticed
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  Speaker 1: something was different well before this recent record surfaced. Back
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  Speaker 1: in June twenty twenty four, Surrey graduated from LaGuardia High School,
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  Speaker 1: the well known performing arts school in New York. The
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  Speaker 1: program handed out that day didn't list her as Surrey Cruise,
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  Speaker 1: It said Surrey Nol. At the time. People close to
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  Speaker 1: the family suggested it was partly a gesture toward her
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  Speaker 1: mother and partly about wanting her own identity heading into college,
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  Speaker 1: somewhere she could start fresh without her surname doing a
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  Speaker 1: lot of the talking for her, particularly with the paparazzi.
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  Speaker 1: Why did she choose the name NOL. The obvious answer,
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  Speaker 1: and the one most reports settle on, is that it's
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  Speaker 1: lifted straight from her mum, Katie Holmes. Middle name is Nol,
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  Speaker 1: and Holmes has effectively been Surrey's sole day to day
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  Speaker 1: parents since the twenty twelve divorce, keeping her out of
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  Speaker 1: the spotlight as much as any parent in that position
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  Speaker 1: realistically can. Picking a name tied to her mother rather
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  Speaker 1: than something unconnected altogether says something too. This reads less
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  Speaker 1: like cutting ties completely and more like leaning further into
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  Speaker 1: the parent who's actually been there The reasons behind the
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  Speaker 1: name chain. No one from the family has laid it
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  Speaker 1: out in a single statement, so this is really a
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  Speaker 1: handful of reasons pieced together from different reports over the
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  Speaker 1: last two years. Taken together, though they paint a fairly
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  Speaker 1: clear picture a tribute to her mother. It is this
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  Speaker 1: reasoning which is most commonly cited. The middle name of
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  Speaker 1: Surrey is Knowl, and Holmes is the parent who has
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  Speaker 1: brought her up after the divorce. Using Knowl as the
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  Speaker 1: first name would seem to put the mother's name up
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  Speaker 1: front rather than the father's. Wanting her own identity separate
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  Speaker 1: from Cruise, the fact of being the other half of
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  Speaker 1: a highly renowned last name is burdened by an image
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  Speaker 1: which is not really who you are. There were reports
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  Speaker 1: about her desire to have a name of her own
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  Speaker 1: when she graduated in twenty twenty four, something without any
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  Speaker 1: image associated with anyone else's name distance from her father.
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  Speaker 1: It is well known that Surrey has had a poor
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  Speaker 1: relationship with her father, Tom Cruise, since the divorce that
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  Speaker 1: took place in twenty twelve. Changing her last name is
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  Speaker 1: definitely a sign of distancing herself from the relationship, although
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  Speaker 1: it is not clear whether any one intended it to
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  Speaker 1: be this way, avoiding the paparazzi an unwonted attention. A
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  Speaker 1: source sighted around her graduation said going by Knowl would
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  Speaker 1: help her dodge photographers and start university without her name
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  Speaker 1: flagging her down immediately. For someone who's been photographed since birth,
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  Speaker 1: a lower profile surname is a practical shield, not just
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  Speaker 1: a symbolic one. Afresh start heading into college, starting somewhere new,
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  Speaker 1: a new city, a new school, a new phase of
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  Speaker 1: adulthood is a natural point for any one to reconsider
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  Speaker 1: how they want to be known. For Surrey, University offered
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  Speaker 1: a clean break to make the switch stick away. From
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  Speaker 1: the environment she'd grown up in it he had already
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  Speaker 1: been building for years. This wasn't a sudden decision. She
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  Speaker 1: used NOL at her twenty twenty four graduation and in
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  Speaker 1: earlier school productions. So the recent voter registration record isn't
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  Speaker 1: the start of the change. It's just the point where
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  Speaker 1: it became provably legal. None of these reasons rule the
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  Speaker 1: others out. It's entirely possible all of them played some
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  Speaker 1: part layered on top of each other, rather than there
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  Speaker 1: being one single deciding moment. What about her relationship with
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  Speaker 1: Tom Cruise, That part of the story is murkier and
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  Speaker 1: probably always will be. From the outside. Surrey and Tom
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  Speaker 1: Cruise are reported to have had limited contact for a
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  Speaker 1: large chunk of her life. Cruise, for his part, has
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  Speaker 1: pushed back on the idea that he simply walked away.
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  Speaker 1: In a twenty thirteen defamation case, he said he spoke
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  Speaker 1: to Surrey nearly every day by phone and stayed across
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  Speaker 1: her school life and friendships. Still, the optics haven't done
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  Speaker 1: him any favors. He reportedly wasn't at her graduation, and
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  Speaker 1: that kind of absence tends to keep the estrangement narrative alive,
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  Speaker 1: regardless of what said in a court room years earlier.
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  Speaker 1: His public life has carried on largely around the Mission
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  Speaker 1: Impossible franchise at what looks from the outside at least
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  Speaker 1: like real distance from his daughter's day to day what
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  Speaker 1: Surrey is doing at Carnegie Mellon. Apart from all of these,
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  Speaker 1: Surrey appears to be engaging herself in what most drama
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  Speaker 1: inclined students engage themselves with work. She is currently enrolled
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  Speaker 1: at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and specializes in
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  Speaker 1: musical theater, an ambition that has roots going back to
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  Speaker 1: her high school days at Lagardia, when she performed Mortitia
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  Speaker 1: in their school production of The Adams Family. Ever since
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  Speaker 1: joining the university, she has been involved in reading sessions,
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  Speaker 1: including the one held at the Pittsburgh based New Haslet Theater,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: while there have been reports of her involvement in an
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  Speaker 1: updated version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: tour the United Kingdom from Edinburgh. Is this common among
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  Speaker 1: celebrity children more than you'd think. Actually, A run of
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: well known children of celebrities have made the same move
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  Speaker 1: once they've turned eighteen. Shiloh Jolipit is probably the most
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  Speaker 1: talked about recent example. It's usually framed less as a
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  Speaker 1: rejection of the parent and more as an attempt to
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  Speaker 1: build something separate a name that isn't already doing pr
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  Speaker 1: work Before you've said a single word conclusion To sum
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  Speaker 1: it up plainly, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, daughter Surrey
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  Speaker 1: drops her dad's last name, swapping Cruise for nol in
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  Speaker 1: a change that's now backed by legal paperwork. Nobody involved,
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  Speaker 1: not Surrey, not homes, not Cruise has spoken about this directly,
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  Speaker 1: so a lot of the why here is inference rather
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  Speaker 1: than confirmed fact. But laid end to end, the timeline
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  Speaker 1: tells a fairly coherent story. A graduation program in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty four, more than a year of quietly going by
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  Speaker 1: knol in her own circles, and now paperwork that makes
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  Speaker 1: it official. It doesn't read like an impulsive decision. It
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  Speaker 1: reads like someone who's had this in mind for a
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  Speaker 1: while and finally got round to making it permanent.