On Saturday, the Daily Mail published photos of Tom Cruise and Ana de Armas emerging from a London restaurant on an alleged “Valentine’s Day date.” Intriguing. Was love blooming between the actress and the action star? Were they hoping to create romance rumors for the sake of promoting their upcoming blockbusters? Or was it something completely different?
The answer, if you can believe it, is the third one. De Armas and Cruise were not out on a romantic date. While they did go out to dinner together, it wasn’t even on Valentine’s Day. TomCruiseFan.com, a fan site that meticulously collects every photo of Cruise to ever exist, has both the paparazzi pics and the selfies Cruise took with fans that night, and they’re saying that it was February 13. If you want more “legitimate” proof, People quickly reported that the pair actually got dinner on the 13th and that they were accompanied by their agents.
The tabloid also got a source to confirm that the dinner was platonic. Cruise and de Armas were apparently “discussing potential collaborations down the line” and “appeared to have no romantic connection, just friends.” They also added, “Tom looked happy as fans approached him for photos, and the group later took home leftovers.” Yum!
A couple days later, as if to double down on how much she’s not dating Tom Cruise, de Armas was papped walking around Madrid with her actual boyfriend, Manuel Anido Cuesta. (Tabloid devotees might remember that Cuesta is the stepson of Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel.) De Armas previously (and iconically) dated Ben Affleck, so you’d be forgiven for believing that she might have fallen for a different older, American A-lister.
To circle back for a moment, what “potential collaborations” do we want from de Armas and Cruise? It won’t be a romantic relationship, but hopefully it can be something more interesting than an action movie. Did somebody say Deep Water sequel?