20 Years Ago, the Most Anticipated Celebrity Baby Photos Finally Dropped-and People Couldn't Believe It
What happens when one of the most famous faces of all time, who starred in action-packed flicks such as Top Gun, Mission Impossible, and The Last Samurai, has a baby with the it-girl of ‘90s teen TV? You get Suri Cruise!
As a couple, actor Tom Cruise and his then-wife, Dawson's Creek alum Katie Holmes, were media sensations from the start. He was 44, and she was only 27. He was a big screen icon, and she was on a popular WB series. He infamously jumped on Oprah's couch, professing his love for Holmes in front of millions of viewers, and she (not surprisingly) agreed to marry him.
Cruise and Holmes, a.k.a. TomKat, married in November of 2006 and welcomed daughter Suri on April 18, 2006.
Of course, this momentous event occurred roughly four years before Instagram's launch. So unlike today's celebrity parents, the Cruises didn't have the option of posting their own birth announcement online. Instead, TomKat's fans had to patiently wait for the couple to release photos of their brand-new baby girl.
When Did Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes Introduce Suri to the World?
While the paparazzi stalked the family, waiting for their chance to snap the first pics of Suri, Tom and Katie kept their daughter's face private. That is, until October of 2006. TomKat finally agreed to release photos-and Suri made her grand debut on the pages of Vanity Fair. Photographed by icon Annie Leibovitz, the first picture of the trio was much more than a simple selfie. The Cruises posed outside of their Telluride, Colorado, retreat for what could only be viewed as an artistic family portrait.
Even though the first picture of baby Suri may have drawn fans to the magazine, the article also let people into this famous couple's life in a way that the tabloids couldn't. Cruise spoke candidly about his new daughter, saying, "She has Kate's lips and eyes…I think she looks like Kate." Katie (if you recall, Cruise was pretty much the only person on the planet to call her Kate) had a different opinion: "I think she has Tom's eyes. I think she looks like Tom."
Holmes also revealed how having a baby changed her life, "The moment the doctor handed me Suri…I was just ready. The feeling is indescribable. All I can say is the moment I looked in her eyes I felt like-Mom."
Why did the Cruises wait to release photos of their kiddo? According to the Vanity Fair interview, they actually planned to share their own pictures. But, as Katie explains, "Then all the craziness began. This ‘Where is Suri?' controversy. Tom and I looked at each other and said, ‘What's going on?' We weren't trying to hide anything."
Fast forward 20 years, and fans can find plenty of photos of a now-adult Suri online. Tom and Katie famously divorced in 2012. Suri spent much of her childhood in New York City with her mom, Katie, and is now a college student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. While Katie certainly doesn't overshare, she does occasionally post a few pics on Instagram to mark special events, such as Suri's birthday.
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This story was originally published April 27, 2026 at 7:54 AM.