Tom and Penelope cruise to halt... but stay friends

HOLLYWOOD power couple Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz have ended their relationship after three years but remain good friends and are not dating anyone else.

The Last Samurai star Cruise and Latin lovely Penelope quietly broke up in January but remain friends, People magazine reported on its website.

Spokesmen for both stars confirmed the split but didn’t say what caused it.

“It’s amicable,” was all Lee Anne DeVette, Cruise’s sister and publicist would say.

Cruz’s spokesman Robert Garlock explained: “They remain good friends and still talk often.” He added neither is seeing anyone else.

A source close to the couple said: “The relation- ship just ran its course and they decided not to be girlfriend and boyfriend anymore.” The pair may have had a tough go of it, the source suggested, as most of the time “they were shooting movies in separate parts of the world”.

After filming last year’s The Last Samurai in New Zealand and Japan, Cruise, 41, went right to work on the recently- wrapped crime thriller Collateral, set for release this summer.

The 29-year-old Cruz, known as the Spanish Enchantress, also made several movies since she and Cruise became an item in the summer of 2001, including last year’s Gothika and the Italian film Don’t Move. When they weren’t working, Cruise and Cruz sometimes retreated to his place in Telluride, Colorado.

Garlock said Cruise’s membership in the Church of Scientology had nothing to do with the split and Cruz had taken an interest in the L Ron Hubbard-founded religion.

“She’s not a Scientologist, but she has taken (church) courses and found them beneficial,” he said.

This is the second high-profile split Cruise has endured recently. Earlier this month, he parted ways with his long-time publicist, Pat Kingsley, and replaced her with his sister.

DeVette last week denied reports that Cruise fired Kingsley after they clashed over his support of Scientology.

They met in 2000 while filming Vanilla Sky and began dating in 2001 after his marriage to Nicole Kidman ended earlier that year.

Speculation the affair had soured surfaced when Cruz didn’t show at the January 25 Golden Globes ceremony, where Cruise was nominated for The Last Samurai.