Dakota Fanning on Tom Cruise’s Birthday Gesture 20 Years Post ‘War of the Worlds’

Dakota Fanning is still receiving a pair of birthday shoes from her former War of the Worlds co-star Tom Cruise, 20 years after the tradition began.

Fanning, 30, was just 11 when she starred with Cruise, now 63, in the 2005 sci-fi film, and is still gifted a ‘really nice’ pair of footwear by the actor on her special day.

She spilled on the sweet gesture during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live, revealing the tradition has continued even amid changing shoe sizes. 

‘Tom Cruise still sends you shoes on your birthday?’ host Andy Cohen, 57, added, prompting her to confirm the gesture continues.

‘Yes he does,’ she replied.

‘Like what kind of shoes?’ he asked. ‘Really nice shoes,’ she added with a laugh. 

‘I have so many questions!’ WWHL guest Brittany Snow chimed in. 

‘It’s really as simple as that! He’s just always given me shoes,’ she said. 

‘But are they nice shoes, are they sneakers?’ she asked. ‘They’re nice shoes,’ Fanning repeated. 

‘He knows your size?’ Snow followed up, earning an affirmative nod from Fanning. ‘And what if your size changed over the years?’ Snow continued. 

‘It has changed over the years,’ Fanning said. 

An amazed Snow replied: ‘He’s got your new size and he’s adapted.’

Cruise and Fanning starred as father and daughter attempting to survive an apocalyptic alien invasion in the hit movie War of the Worlds, which was directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the HG Wells novel of the same name.

While the picture was being filmed, Fanning turned 11, and Cruise gave her the Motorola Razr cellphone she had been openly coveting.

Then the pair began doing media appearances for the movie, and Fanning started indulging in her budding love of footwear.

‘From that birthday on, he always sends me shoes,’ Fanning revealed on The Kelly Clarkson Show last year. 

‘I turned 11 on War of the Worlds, when we worked together, and he gave me my first cellphone for that birthday. It was a Motorola Razr,’ she recalled.

‘I wanted a Razr so bad and I must have been talking about it a lot, because that’s what he got me,’ she said with a laugh. ‘It was so – such a great memory.’

Fanning  then explained: ‘He always sends me the same thing every year, after the cellphone. I… loved shoes when I was little, and I started to be able to fit into really small adult shoes when I was on the War of the Worlds press tour so I was very excited about them. And so from that birthday on he always sends me shoes.’

The birthday tradition wasn’t the only topic Fanning dished on during her appearance on WWHL. 

She also groaned about her experiences using the celebrity dating app Raya.

‘I’m over it,’ she admitted. 

‘It’s a lot of people pretending to be creative directors,’ Cohen added.  

‘A lot of founders, creative directors,’ she said.

Her biggest gripe with the app was the descriptions suitors put about the type of person they are seeking.  

‘My peeve with it also is their logline, bio thing saying how adventurous you have to be. 

‘”Want a woman who will climb a mountain with me and than go get a coffee, like walk to the beach.” I don’t want to do any of that,’ she said. 

In the past, Fanning has been romantically linked to British model Jamie Strachan in 2013-2016, commercial real estate broker Logan Markley in 2016-2017, and New Englander Henry Frye in 2017-2018.