Katie Holmes: Scientology's Worst Nightmare

The Hollywood Reporter takes a long look at the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes split today, talking to a number of ex-Scientologists who marvel at the way she's handling the divorce—she's clearly on the offensive, quite the opposite of Nicole Kidman, who ended up basically losing her children to Cruise. "Katie could blow Scientology wide open," says Marty Rathbun, who handled Cruise's divorce from Kidman and was once considered the second most powerful church official. "If Tom’s smart, he won’t fight her on anything, even custody. He should just try to settle his way out of it. She could press this sole-custody issue and litigate it and that would be the biggest nightmare in the Church of Scientology’s history. It would be a circus they couldn’t survive." Another former high-level Scientologist agrees that Holmes could stir up a "media frenzy" that would "drive a wedge in a door that Scientology was trying to keep closed." The entire extensive article is worth a read. More details trickling out:

• Holmes fired Cruise's daughter Isabella, who worked at her clothing line, Holmes and Yang, about two months ago. "This was a carefully planned ambush," says a source.
• Indeed, she may have hinted at what was to come in an interview six weeks before filing for divorce, the New York Post reports. Holmes told Elle she felt she was "starting to come into my own. It's like a new phase."
• Katie is making it hard for Tom to talk to daughter Suri, sources tell TMZ, though he talks to her by phone at least once each day. Predictably, that means things are "really bitter now" between him and Holmes.
• Katie has spoken publicly for the first time since filing for divorce, telling a New York Daily News reporter, "I'm all right—thank you." And she does seem "all right"—click to see pictures of her looking carefree and happy at an ice cream parlor with Suri.

(More Tom Cruise stories.)