Copyright The Mercury News
In paparazzi photos snapped Tuesday, Ana de Armas looked like she was moving on from her reported romance with Tom Cruise by doing some home-decor shopping with a dark and handsome man who’s been identified as a “hunky” Brazilian-born venture capitalist. One thing that’s immediately apparent about the man identified by TMZ as Marcelo Valente, is that he’s also tall — much taller than the 5-foot-6-inch de Armas and taller than Cruise, who is 5 feet 7 inches. It’s not known how tall Valente is, but he looks as though he could be similar in size to the 6-foot-3 Ben Affleck, whom de Armas dated from around 2019 to 2021. De Armas and Valente didn’t get too handsy on the shopping trip, but they seemed pretty well acquainted. TMZ and the Daily Mail noted that the Cuban-born actor brought along her dog, with whom Valente seemed friendly. She and the UCLA-educated Valente, a partner at at venture capital company Babel Ventures, also were recorded through the window of an upscale home-design shop, looking at color samples together. These photos of de Armas and Valente were published a couple weeks after Us Weekly broke the news that the 37-year-old “Ballerina” star had “put the brakes” on her burgeoning relationship with 63-year-old Cruise, after she reportedly got “a little uncomfortable with how fast it was going.” That news didn’t come as that much of a surprise to many. Some either questioned whether the de Armas/Cruise romance had been real in the first place — and not a PR stunt — while others are familiar with what’s long been known about about the “Top Gun” star’s personal and professional, “need for speed” intensity. Few were surprised to read that Cruise would want to move “fast” for a commitment from de Armas, given how quickly he moved to get his past two wives, Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes, to marry him. Now, media outlets are trying to piece together what they can about the background of the man who may have lured de Armas away from the global superstar. The Daily Mail, for example, reported that Valente boasts on his company bio of working with high-profile musicians and actors and also found a Los Angeles based company that “bridg(es) the worlds of entertainment and technology.” As for the evident height difference between Valente and Cruise, there’s no indication that Cruise’s height was a factor in his breakup from de Armas. Still, the “Mission: Impossible” star’s height has long been an issue for him — at least professionally, according to reports. There has been talk about how he manages to measure up to his taller female co-stars on camera. There’s also been speculation that he perhaps uses lifts in his shoes or other tricks to look as tall as possible when he appears alongside those women at public events. Early in his career in the 1980s, Cruise reportedly listed himself as 5-foot-8 or 5-foot-9. When he appeared in promotional photos with Kelly McGillis, his love interest in the original 1986 “Top Gun” movie, the 5-foot-10-inch actress visibly bent her knees and rested her head on the actor’s shoulder so as to not tower over him. Kidman, Cruise’s famously tall second wife who is 5 feet 11 inches, admitted that she she had to ditch heels when they first worked together in the 1990 film, “Days of Thunder.” When they were still married, Kidman insisted Cruise didn’t mind that she was taller than him. However, she changed her tune about his height issues after he reportedly blindsided her by asking for a divorce in 2001, after 11 years of marriage. On “The David Letterman Show,” Kidman famously joked, “I can wear heels now!” Holmes, at 5 feet 9 inches, similarly celebrated that same post-divorce perk after she filed for divorce from Cruise in 2012. According to Marie Claire, she splashed out thousands of dollars to buy 15 pairs of Christian Louboutin heels after they split. Following her reported split from Cruise, De Armas also went shopping, as documented in the photos published this week. It appears that she likes being able to go out with a man who is not always surrounded by handlers and the circus that Cruise tends to attract, personally and professionally. With Valente, she was at least able to enjoy a normal-people outing to a store to look at color samples, even if the paparazzi showed up.
