Katie Holmes: 2012's Tina Turner

Katie Holmes - free and single in NY

The hoopla around TomKat - the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes divorce will resonate for years with people offering their own theories about the marriage and the faith that seemingly caused its birth and destruction. At the end of it all, there was a sigh of relief when 33 year old Katie Holmes, after 5 years of being married to one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, walked out of her marriage. What struck me is that she did  so, by media accounts, with a lot of guts and a very shrewd mind - using a disposable cell phone to make plans, out of the reach of his Scientology handlers, getting three law firms involved, putting them on standby, contacting Nicole Kidman for advice and going to her dad, a divorce lawyer to ensure she would get out of this thing "alive".

Not only did she get out of it "alive" but she also showed the world that she was not just a trophy wife and after years of being little more than an appendage, she rose to being her own person once more.

While there is certainly no evidence of physical abuse, it is clear that she was under the hold of her husband and his church, a kind of mental and emotional abuse that made her seem older than her years and less exuberant than the Joey Potter-esque Katie the world had known prior to the union. In the middle of all the hoopla, much is being theorised about Scientology and I have no comment on that. Instead I want to say that  Katie came out of this gracefully, with little more than a 2-week period of negotiation to settle the divorce, and not a years-long battle in courts with Tom Cruise brandishing his Hollywood and Scientology power over the little woman. Katie is the winner here and though she did not run out of a hotel room screaming like Tina did, she is a survivor. Props to her.