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It’s been 41 years since Risky Business hit the screens and made a global superstar out of Tom Cruise and his tighty-whities. Even though it was over four decades ago, fans are still discovering juicy stories from behind the scenes, including his alleged affair with co-star Rebecca De Mornay.

The dynamic duo met on the set of the 1983 film about a teen whose life goes a bit crazy when his parents go out of town and leave him in charge of the house. Cruise and De Mornay’s sex scenes in the film were pretty steamy, and it’s no wonder that their chemistry carried over to their personal lives — but there’s a catch to this story. She was dating actor Harry Dean Stanton at the same time. It was co-star Curtis Armstrong who spilled the tea on the reported entanglement in his 2017 memoir, Revenge of the Nerd: Or . . . The Singular Adventures of the Man Who Would Be Booger.

RISKY BUSINESS, from left: Rebecca De Mornay, Tom Cruise, 1983.
Armstrong wrote, in an excerpt obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, “It’s no secret that Tom engaged in an intense affair during the shooting with De Mornay — who, at 23, managed to maintain her inaccessible, sexual mysteriousness under any circumstances, unless you could catch her in a joke, at which point her mask would drop as her eyes lit up and she would burst into a full-throated laugh.” He noted that the cast could see the affair developing a mile away, but it was De Mornay’s relationship with Stanton that held them back — for a bit.

“Part of the delay was caused by the presence of Harry Dean Stanton, who was involved with Rebecca. During the hours she worked, Harry Dean — an affable man and great actor — spent his days slowly swimming the length of the hotel pool, literally for hours at a time,” Armstrong continued. He noted that Cruise treated Stanton “as a guest overstaying his welcome” while he was visiting De Mornay. “It must have been a little galling to have your heart set on f—ing your co-star, and just when you think you’re starting to make headway, her significant other comes popping up out of a trap like a lanky, amiable Banquo’s ghost,” he wrote.

Armstrong also talked about Cruise’s patience while De Mornay was “inaccessible” during Stanton’s visit. “He started cutting a wide swath through the local talent,” claimed the actor. Yes, Cruise was reportedly quite the player back in the day. Eventually, De Mornay split from Stanton and her relationship with Cruise lasted two years and a half years. In 2023, she made a rare comment about the superstar in an interview with The Wrap.

“It was personally jarring and thrilling and discombobulating to have become famous so quickly,” she explained of their relationship. “I was a more complicated, mysterious presence, innately than Tom,” she said. “His presence is more like, I would say, a major chord, [thinking] in music terms, and I’m more of a minor chord…America really, really loves the major chords.”