Oprah The infamous Tom Cruise couch jump turns 20 years old on May 23, 2025 It was 2005 when Cruise made his memorable appearance onOprah,jumping on the couch with his hands in the air in excitement over how in love with Katie Holmes he was The moment elicited a range of reactions in its immediate aftermath, and continues to make its mark all these years later The year 2005 was something of a subdued one for pop culture. Destiny's Child performed their last concert as a group.Desperate HousewivesandEverybody Loves Raymondentertained television viewers.Wedding Crashers, Harry Potter and the Goblet of FireandMr. & Mrs. Smithtopped the box office. But there was one cultural moment that year that would be defining — not just for 2005 but for the actor at the center of it:Tom Cruise. Cruise made headlines that year when, during an appearance onOprah, he jumped on the couch with his hands in the air in excitement over how in love withKatie Holmeshe was. It's almost difficult to put into words how big a deal the couch jump was at the time. It was arguably one of the first "viral" moments on network television, where it seemingly played on a loop for weeks, if not months, after. The PEOPLE Appis now available in the Apple App Store! Download it now for the most binge-worthy celeb content, exclusive video clips, astrology updates and more! Here's what happened: a then 42-year-old Cruise was the day's guest onOprah, a show known for its live studio audiences, who often energized both the show's host and its guests. At the time, Cruise was promotingWar of the Worlds, the Steven Spielberg-directed science fiction/action film in which he starred as a father trying to protect his children amid an alien invasion. But it was something else — his then-still-burgeoning relationship with actress Holmes — that had audiences excited. And boy were they everexcited. Even before Cruise entered the stage, the energy was palpable, with Oprah Winfrey egging on the crowd that filled Chicago's Harpo Studios. Close-up shots of the crowd showed grown women applauding, dancing and offering up deafening screams — some even crying with the news that Cruise was "in the building," as Winfrey shouted. Cruise — then, as he is now, the world's biggest movie star — eventually burst onto the set, flashing an ear-to-ear grin and eliciting even greater cries from the crowd as he took a knee to bow to the host. Almost immediately, Winfrey mentioned Holmes, thanking Cruise for attending a recent event with his new girlfriend. The mere mention of her name and a giddy Cruise threw up one hand — seeking a high-five from Winfrey — and then the other, clenching her hands as he began to rise off the couch. "What has happened to you?" Winfrey then asked, later adding: "We've never seen you behave this way before!" "I'm in love!" Cruise responded. At the end of the episode, Winfrey even implored Holmes herself to come to the stage (Cruise himself pulled her out). But it was Cruise's unbridled energy that everyone remembers. At various points he smiled, laughed, knelt on the floor, pumped his fists, held both arms aloft in a "victory"-like stance, and, in a moment most cemented in the minds of everyone who was watching, jumped onto the sofa with both feet. Barry Brecheisen/WireImage The moment was brief — some five seconds elapsed between the time he landed on the cushion and made his way back down — but memorable. It's been parodied onSesame StreetandFamily Guy. Spoofed endlessly on YouTube. The couch jump became such a lasting part of the cultural zeitgeist thatChet Hankseven made an homage to the moment onThe Drew Barrymore Showin March 2025. It also had repercussions beyond being cemented in pop culture lore for the better part of three decades. Some would argue it changed the course of Cruise's career, ushering in a new level of scrutiny to an actor who had previously shied away from being too personal. Executives even suggested the stunt had cost Cruisemillions in production deals, theWall Street Journalreported not long after. Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE's free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. The tentacles of the couch jump reached further than Cruise. At the March 2025 ICG Publicists Awards, publicist Tim Menke — who booked Cruise on Winfrey in the fateful 2005 appearance — said it had cost him that job. "These awards solidified a special place in my heart in 2006 when, after a dozen years at Paramount, I was kicked to the curb in large part because, well, long story short of a couch," Menke said at the event, perThe Hollywood Reporter."It was my booking and it didn't go very well. It violated the adage that all publicity is good publicity." Menke eventually got his job back. And Cruise recovered as well, going on to helm a slew of box office hits, most notably 2022'sTop Gun: Maverick, which grossednearly $1.5 billion globally, making it the highest-grossing film of Cruise's career. He premieres his latest project,Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, this weekend. Daniel Cardenas/Anadolu via Getty Cruise has rarely spoken publicly about the couch incident. He reconvened with Winfrey shortly after the episode in question to reflect on it, saying he had no idea it would grow to be as wide-reaching as it had. "No, I didn't. That was a moment, and it was real. It was something that I just felt that way. And it's something, you know, that's just how I felt," he said. In a later interview withTV Guide Magazine,Winfrey said that she too was surprised by the "brouhaha" that ensued following the 2005 moment. The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now! Cruise, she toldTV Guide, "was in love. He was very happy about it. He was on a show. He knew me. He came to play." "It ended up on the evening news, people played that tape all over the world," Winfrey told the magazine. "I thought it was an expression of delightful exuberance and being in love. Any woman, anywhere, in any hut, in any mansion, in any hovel or in any home would be really thrilled to have her man jump on a sofa run around a room, whatever, proclaiming his love for her." Read the original article onPeople
