To save his image, Tom Cruise has cut all ties with Will Smith post the Oscars 2022 slapgate incident.

Will Smith is one of those actors who somehow manage to get the spotlight on themselves every once in a while – both for commendable things as well as controversial ones. Yet, even through those bad times when he found himself as a victim of utter backlash, the Bad Boys actor has mostly had his friends and loved ones around him. Except for the one time his one close pal decided to back out and has been out of his life ever since.

This ‘close friend’ was Tom Cruise, who has been wisely avoiding Will Smith ever since his infamous Oscars slap incident from last year. This was followed by a startling revelation by Jada Pinkett months later about her relationship with Smith, which is more than enough to leave fans stunned.

Will Smith And Tom Cruise’s Friendship Has Been Critical Since Oscars 2022

Ever since Will Smith made the haste move and slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars 2022 for the comment the latter made on his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, a lot of people close to the I Am Legend actor have been icing out on him. And this included his close pal Tom Cruise as well.

According to RadarOnline.com, an insider has claimed that the Top Gun actor has been avoiding Smith despite the latter trying to approach him several times.

“Will [Smith] has approached Tom [Cruise] several times, trying to reconnect and see if they can hang out and brainstorm on some projects together,” a source spilled. “A solid movie with Tom would guarantee Will’s comeback, or so he thinks. Will has even offered to fly to London if that’s more convenient, but Tom isn’t biting and doesn’t even write him back.”

Although the 60-year-old star still sympathizes with his 54-year-old friend after what he has been through, the source has claimed that that doesn’t mean Cruise is going to “be stupid enough to put his neck on the line and be dragged down by association” in the same way as the Bad Boys actor.

“Tom is still very wary of any Hollywood friendships. He likes his reclusive lifestyle in the United Kingdom,” the insider revealed, adding, “He doesn’t want to get sucked back into the Hollywood scene — especially by way of Will Smith. He’s still kryptonite.”

Seems Tom Cruise isn’t the only one who is avoiding Smith to save his own immensely successful career from the risk of getting dragged around.

While the infamous Chris Rock slap controversy surrounding Will Smith had been dying down lately considering it’s already been more than a year since the incident, however, Jada Pinkett Smith has once again gotten The Pursuit of Happyness actor back in the limelight.

This comes after the actress’ recent revelation in her new memoir Worthy, about how she and her husband have been living separately since 2016 and haven’t been romantically together ever since, despite not being ‘essentially and officially divorced.’

This brought about the question: Why did Will Smith call Jada Pinkett his ‘wife’ during the controversial Oscars slap six years after the pair started living separately? In a viral clip from Today, Pinkett can be seen explaining the same.

“[We were] still trying to figure out between the two of us how to be in partnership, right, and in regards to how do we present that to people,” Pinkett said. “And we hadn’t figured that out.”

Continuing, the Red Table Talk host further shared:

“I think by the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying. I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be. [However,] I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce. We will work through whatever. And I just haven’t been able to break that promise.”

But even after the separation, the couple is said to be “still figuring it out.”

“We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together,” Pinkett revealed. “We just got [a] deep love for each other and we are going to figure out what that looks like for us.”

Turns out Will Smith and Jada Pinkett’s love story is a lot more complicated than the picture the media has painted.