The Holiday Gift Tom Cruise Sends All of His Celebrity Friends
Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek’s network of contributors
Katy O’Brian is hoping for a certain Christmas gift this year — but it’s not from Santa Claus.
The Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning star is actually looking forward to a special coconut cake from her co-star in the film, Tom Cruise. The Hollywood legend, 62, has been gifting the white chocolate coconut bundt cake to his A-list pals for over a decade.
“I can’t wait. I hope that’s [it],” O’Brian told Us Weekly at the 2024 Out100 event in Los Angeles on Wednesday, December 11. “I’m going to be really disappointed if I find out that it’s not what it is.” It’s no surprise she feels that way, seeing as how highly celebrities have talked about the confection from Doan’s Bakery in Woodland Hills, California in the past.
Tom Cruise attends the ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’ premiere at Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center on July 10, 2023 in New York City. In December 2024, stars like Danny Ramirez and Glen Powell began posting images of their holiday gift from Cruise, a white chocolate coconut bundt cake.
Mike Coppola/WireImage
Danny Ramirez, who starred alongside Cruise in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, took to his Instagram Stories this December to share a picture of the elegantly-wrapped gift, with the caption, “Officially the holidays 🎄.”
The cake box was wrapped in a gold bow with a reindeer embellishment, and was accompanied by an embossed note that read, “Warmest wishes to you this Holiday Season,” signed, “Tom Cruise.” Fellow Top Gun: Maverick star Glen Powell also shared a picture of the gift to his stories on Friday, December 13, writing, “The Cruise cake has arrived…”
The gift also made an appearance on the season 3 premiere of Hacks in April 2024, with Jean Smart’s character Deborah Vance receiving the treat, but initially refusing to eat it due to fasting to fit into a gown — to the delight of her former writer Ava (played by Hannah Einbinder). In the end, both characters indulge in the sweet gift, calling it “incredible.”
Back in November 2019, Cobie Smulders, Cruise’s co-star from 2016’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, bragged about receiving the coveted cake while appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. She said it was the “most glorious time of year” when she received the coconut cake from Cruise.
“I leave it in my freezer and it lasts until, like, March. Like, I just slowly chip away at this thing. It’s so good. I don’t know why. I’m not even a big sweets person, but it’s so good,” the How I Met Your Mother alum shared. Fallon revealed that he, too, is on the annual celebrity gift list, describing the cake as “unbelievable.”
In December 2013, Barbara Walters brought out her gifted cake to enjoy with her fellow co-hosts during an episode of The View. Though she shared her cake in the episode, she did clarify that co-hosts Jenny McCarthy, Whoopi Goldberg, and Sherri Shepherd also received cakes.
In a screenshot from Danny Ramirez’s Instagram Story, the ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ star showed off an annual Christmas gift from his co-star, Tom Cruise. His caption declared that it’s “officially the holidays.”
Danny Ramirez/Instagram Story
Other celebrities who have spoken about the annual gift include Rosie O’Donnell, Henry Cavill, Brooke Shields, Angela Bassett and her husband Courtney B. Vance, James Corden, Graham Norton, and Kirsten Dunst, who starred alongside Cruise as a child back in 1994’s Interview with the Vampire.
Though it’s been years since that film, Dunst revealed in an October 2015 interview with Stylist magazine that Cruise sends her a cake “every Christmas.” She called the treat “the best coconut cake I’ve ever had in my life,” and joked that “it gets eaten within a day in my house.”
Unfortunately for Shields, she stopped making the cut — literally — in 2023, when she revealed she was no longer on Cruise’s Christmas greetings list.
In a screenshot from Glen Powell’s Instagram Story, the ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ star showed off an annual Christmas gift from his co-star, Tom Cruise. He shared an image of the present on his social media account on Friday, December 13.
Glen Powell/Instagram Story
“I was on the list for a while. I had a good 10-year run, and I got the coconut cake every year, which I was very happy [about],” the actress told People at the time.
“It was from them [Cruise and then-wife Katie Holmes] and [their daughter] Suri, so it was the three of them, and then soon it was no Suri and no Katie, and just Tom [after their 2012 divorce],” she shared. “Then it went from just Tom for a while, but not every holiday. And then the cake stopped.”
Fans hoping to get a taste of Cruise’s favorite A-list holiday gift can get their hands on one of the Doan’s Bakery white chocolate coconut bundt cakes via Gold Belly — though it comes at a steep price: $129.95.
About The Author
