Tom Cruise has returned to the cover of GQ after 20 years, but one of the 64-year-old actor's deliberately seductive photographs has triggered a decidedly less seductive reaction online. After images from the October 2026 cover shoot circulated online following their release on Tuesday, 15 September, viewers responded with increasingly colourful descriptions of how unappealing they found the Mission: Impossible star's sultry pose.
'This makes me want to never ovulate again,' one reaction declared. Others took the reproductive imagery even further, with one Threads user writing, 'My vagina just slammed shut,' while another said: 'This picture put me all the way into menopause.'
Tom Cruise's GQ Shoot Goes Full Seduction
Photographed by Mario Sorrenti and styled by George Cortina, Cruise's first GQ cover since 2006 leans heavily into old-school Hollywood masculinity. The Top Gun: Maverick actor appears in vintage denim, cowboy hats, boots, tailoring and partially unbuttoned shirts, with several portraits deliberately positioned as more sensual than his familiar action-film image.
The fashion credits span labels including Levi's, Tom Ford, Giorgio Armani, Gucci and Saint Laurent. Yet it was one close-up photograph of Cruise posing in an open shirt that particularly took off on Threads, where viewers quickly began piling into the replies with increasingly blunt reactions.
'Sorry guys, I just saw this and felt instantly nauseous, and I refuse to suffer alone,' Threads user @moniviviny wrote while reposting the image. 'What in the name of a crusty, sun dried retiree who thinks he's God's gift to earth was GQ thinking?'
The Internet Had a Lot To Say
The original post quickly opened the floodgates, with the replies becoming almost as cutting as the caption itself. One user joked, 'If Elon Musk & Tom Cruise had a child,' while another commenter made a more mundane comparison: 'No disrespect to my uncle, but he looks as good as my uncle.'
Another wrote, 'Looks like he was rode hard and put away wet,' while one viewer simply pleaded: 'Man please put all of that away.' Perhaps the most dramatic response came from a commenter who declared: 'My vagina just slammed shut.'
Not everyone agreed. One Threads user pushed back against the pile-on with: 'Not true! I would take him any day!!!'
Cruise Is Entering a New Career Chapter
The photographs accompany a rare interview with Cruise as he moves beyond the Ethan Hunt role that has defined much of his recent career. His next major project, Digger, is a dark comedy directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu in which Cruise plays an oil-company magnate, marking a sharp change from the giant action franchises most closely associated with his name.
Asked whether being 64 had altered how he viewed himself, Cruise gave a straightforward response: 'It means I'm 64.' He also described his Digger role as 'the most challenging character ever' of his career, signalling that his next phase may involve pushing his screen persona in unfamiliar directions.
Watch below: Tom Cruise stars in the official trailer for Digger.
The GQ shoot appears to be doing something similar visually, trading fighter jets and death-defying stunts for denim, open shirts and conspicuously smouldering poses. Social media, however, had its own interpretation of Cruise's attempted fashion reinvention, and 'This picture put me all the way into menopause' may be the review the internet remembers longest.
