There’s nothing better than when a celebrity spills some tea on their early years in Hollywood. Heather Locklear recently dished about the time she and Tom Cruise went on a date to “Club Lingerie” in the 1980s — hey, it was a hot club “at that time.” She was a young TV star on Dynasty and his life had just changed due to the success of Risky Business. It was an entertainment industry fairytale waiting to happen.
However, the story didn’t have a happily ever after since there was only one date between them. Locklear admitted at the 90s Con Florida that her “rock and roll girl” image didn’t vibe with his good-boy persona and he “didn’t quite cut it” for a second date, according to People. Even though he was “really cute” and very nice” to Locklear, that’s where the iconic date ended… or so we thought.
One Hollywood insider thinks that Locklear and Cruise’s date was probably a match made by their publicists, which was quite common in that era. “[Tom] was rather shy and awkward back then,” the source told In Touch Weekly. “His handlers must’ve wanted him to get out there and be seen with girls for publicity and to get people talking about Tom.” It feels like a plausible theory, especially since Top Gun was about to be his next big project — there’s nothing like a little buzz about your personal life in situations like that.
Publicity dates are often coordinated to generate headlines around an actor’s movie or conversely, to distract from a controversy. Former PMK-BNC publicist Jack Ketsoyan revealed some secrets behind the practice, telling Metro in 2019, “The main clue you would see is a high-profile male dating a woman who is not high-profile and all of a sudden overnight they’re the most talked about girl in Hollywood.”
Ketsoyan even shared an example of what his firm did with one actor when he was receiving bad press for an upcoming film. “It was more of a mutual agreement between the agents, and we had a male who actually had a movie coming out and it was getting a lot of bad reviews and slack and they wanted to take the negativity of the movie away and make it more about him,” the former publicist divulged. “We found him a girl, a one-year deal, he finished off the press, and a little bit after that they went their separate ways. She did not want to do a two-year deal.”
Of course, not every Hollywood couple is a PR setup, but it does make us curious as to who Ketsoyan fixed up. Fans may never know their identity, but we can keep guessing!
Before you go, click here to see celebrities who share a famous ex.
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