5 'Mission: Impossible 7' crew members quit after Tom Cruise's explicit COVID-19 rant, report says

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5 'Mission: Impossible 7' crew members quit after Tom Cruise's explicit COVID-19 rant, report says
Cruise on the set of "Mission: Impossible 7"Samantha Zucchi/Insidefoto/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images
  • The British tabloid The Sun is reporting that five "Mission: Impossible 7" crew members have quit following a second rant by Tom Cruise.
  • The same newspaper on Tuesday published a leaked audio recording of Cruise screaming at cast members for breaking COVID-19 rules. It's unclear when that incident took place.
  • The Sun's source said: "The first outburst was big, but things haven't calmed since. Tension has been building for months, and this was the final straw. Since it became public there has been more anger and several staff have walked."
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The British newspaper The Sun is reporting that five crew members have quit "Mission: Impossible 7" after Tom Cruise gave a second explicit rant over COVID-19 restrictions.

Citing an unnamed source, the tabloid wrote that Cruise confronted the film's crew for a second time Tuesday evening after audio of an earlier outburst was leaked to the newspaper. The exact date of the earlier incident was unclear.

"The first outburst was big, but things haven't calmed since," the source told The Sun. "Tension has been building for months, and this was the final straw. Since it became public there has been more anger and several staff have walked."

The source went on to say Cruise was upset that some members of the crew weren't taking the social-distancing rules or the importance of being one of the few big-budget films shooting during a pandemic as seriously as him.

Insider has contacted representatives for Cruise, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden (a complex northwest of London where the movie is being shot) for confirmation of The Sun's reporting.

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5 'Mission: Impossible 7' crew members quit after Tom Cruise's explicit COVID-19 rant, report says
Tom Cruise's rant occurred on the set of "Mission: Impossible 7."Samantha Zucchi/Insidefoto/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images

The Sun on Tuesday published a leaked audio recording that captured Cruise screaming at the "Mission: Impossible 7" crew, apparently after he discovered that two people broke strict social-distancing rules by standing too close to each other at a computer monitor.

During the expletive-laden rant, Cruise could be heard calling the crew members "motherf---ers" and warned that if he saw them breaking the rules again, "you're f---ing gone."

"We are the gold standard. They're back there in Hollywood making movies right now because of us," Cruise said during the audio recording. "They believe in us and what we're doing. I'm on the phone with every f---ing studio at night, insurance companies, producers, and they're looking at us and using us to make their movies. We are creating thousands of jobs, you motherf---ers. I don't ever want to see it again. Ever!"

The tirade continued for about three minutes, with Cruise often speaking directly with crew members: "No apologies, you can tell it to the people that are losing their f---ing homes because our industry is shut down. It's not going to put food on their table or pay for their college education."

"Mission: Impossible 7" was forced to pause shooting in Venice, Italy, back in February after multiple crew members tested positive for COVID-19. After production resumed in Norway, it was reported that the 58-year-old actor rented two cruise ships so all 200 crew and production members could self-isolate safely.

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The film is scheduled for a November 2021 release.

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