People Are Praising Tom Cruise For Blowing Up On People Who Broke COVID-19 Safety Rules, Saying ‘Good For Tom’

On Tuesday word broke that Tom Cruise had blown up on two crew members on the set of the seventh Mission: Impossible, tearing into them with an epic, profanity-strewn tirade. But it wasn’t some diva move. Cruise was furious that he caught two people not obeying social distancing, at a time when movie production has hesitantly come back while dealing with a still rampaging pandemic. Social media doesn’t always have the sometimes controversial movie star’s back. But this time they did.

Still, Cruise really let them have it. After it was first reported by The Sun (then confirmed by Variety), audio eventually leaked, and you could hear him start around 11, then keep up that intensity for almost 2 ½ minutes. (And the audio is incomplete, so who knows how long it really went.) After catching the crew members not obeying strict COVID-19 safety precautions — when multiple productions have had to go on pause after outbreaks, including Mission: Impossible 7, which began filming before the pandemic — Cruise tore into them.

“I’m on the phone with every f*cking studio at night, insurance companies, producers and they’re looking at us and using us to make their movies,” Cruise yelled. He continued:

“We are creating thousands of jobs, you motherf*ckers. I don’t ever want to see it again. Ever!” He stressed that the industry was in real trouble. You can tell it to the people who are losing their f*cking homes because our industry is shut down … It’s not going to put food on their table or pay for their college education. That’s what I sleep with every night – the future of this f*cking industry!”

He tried to calm down a bit, apologizing for being so angry. But he ultimately stood his ground. “I have told you, and now I want it, and if you don’t do it, you’re out. We are not shutting this f*cking movie down! Is it understood?” he told them. “If I see it again, you’re f*cking gone.”

This wasn’t a typical leaked audio of some movie star mistreating lowly crew members. Cruise was righteous in his anger. And people online were on his side.

Some asked if he could come back to America, the land of the mask skeptics.

Soon the words “Good for Tom” was trending.

Some did wrestle with some of Cruise’s other beliefs.

Others compared and contrasted him with another high-profile case of a movie blowing up on a crew member: the one in 2009 in which Christian Bale infamously over-reacted to a crew member accidentally causing him to blow a take on Terminator: Salvation. In that case, the public did not side with the actor.

Others thought maybe Cruise and Bale should team up.

And it made some think of past movies where Cruise gets very upset.

In any case, consider this the opposite of the notorious “couch jumping” scandal — which, incidentally was mostly taken out-of-context anyway, leading to an undeserving backlash — from the mid-aughts. This was one Tom Cruise outburst that made people like him even more.