Following her high-profile marriage and tumultuous 2012 divorce from megastar Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes seemed overly eager to keep her next serious relationship, with actor Jamie Foxx, under wraps.
During their six years together, Holmes and Foxx went to cloak-and-dagger lengths to avoid being photographed together in public. On a couple occasions, that included slipping into restaurants separately and hiding out at some back table, away from the prying eyes of the public or the paparazzi.
But Holmes, 41, isn’t showing such an obsession with secrecry with her new rumored romance with celebrity chef Emilio Vitolo, 33. Holmes has been photographed with Vitolo twice in the past week, dining al fresco at two popular New York City restaurants.
It would be reasonable to wonder if the usually private Holmes let her guard slip when she was first photographed with Vitolo last week. TMZ captured the two sitting at a restaurant’s outdoor table, laughing and enjoying glasses of wine.
Katie Holmes looks besotted on romantic dinner with chef Emilio Vitolo Jrhttps://t.co/rxnLgEps2D
— Mirror Celeb (@MirrorCeleb) September 7, 2020
But Holmes seemed to throw any caution to the wind on Sunday night, and “confirmed” the romance by letting herself be seen and photographed at another restaurant’s outdoor table, sitting on Vitolo’s lap and sharing a “sweet” kiss, the Daily Mail said.
PICTURE EXCLUSIVE: Katie Holmes, 41, confirms new romance with chef Emilio Vitolo Jr., 33, with VERY public hot and heavy make-out session… a year after her secretive romance with Jamie Foxx ended
via https://t.co/pevZ0scAkQ scandalous https://t.co/mTI4DE1dmF— Jodi 💅 (@Jodi_Ann_Arias) September 8, 2020
Katie Holmes Caught Passionately Locking Lips With Emilio Vitolo Jr. in Public https://t.co/I2uuMFNbTY pic.twitter.com/lVYx4i2muM
— AceShowbiz (@aceshowbiz) September 8, 2020
Maybe Holmes is fine with the world knowing that she has moved on from Foxx, 52. It could be that she unabashedly adores Vitolo, the boyishly handsome chef who helps run his father’s popular Emilio’s Ballato restaurant in SoHo, Entertainment Tonight reported. Vitolo is certainly comfortable around celebrity, having a number of famous friends, including Whoopi Goldberg and Joe Jonas. He also has done some acting, appearing in the TV comedies “Royal Pains” and “Inside Amy Schumer.”
It also sounds as though Vitolo could be a less complicated partner than Foxx, who reportedly had commitment issues and was reluctant to give up his flirtatious, bachelor ways. Us Weekly reported that the “Dawson’s Creek” star stayed with Foxx because she was “smitten” and because the actor, musician and comedian is “mesmerizing,” “entertaining” and can always make her laugh.
Katie Holmes giggles with chef Emilio Vitolo after split from Jamie Foxx https://t.co/YchwVI69Lm
— The Sun Showbiz (@TheSunShowbiz) September 5, 2020
Holmes reportedly got involved with Foxx about a year after her difficult divorce from Cruise. Her relationship with Cruise, which included his famously crazed couch-jumping declaration of love on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2005, may have been tested by his alleged efforts to exercise undue influence over her career and reports that he was pressuring her and their daughter Suri, now 14, to join the Church of Scientology.
Holmes’ divorce from Cruise also may one reason she had to be so secretive about her relationship with Foxx, the Daily Mail reported. That’s because her divorce settlement with Cruise, which allowed her to retain custody of daughter Suri, allegedly included a clause that banned her from publicly dating for five years, the Daily Mail said, citing a report from Radar Online.
But if the ban was real, Holmes and Foxx didn’t take advantage of it being lifted. They continued to keep their relationship under wraps until they attended the Met Gala together in May 2019. However, a few months later, news broke that they had broken up.
Of course, if Holmes was willing to be seen in public with Vitolo, there could be a more mundane reason. She and Vitolo would have no choice but to be seen in public if they wanted to dine out together at a New York City restaurant.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, indoor dining has been banned in New York City. The only options are outdoor dining or take-out. According to the TMZ and Daily Mail photos of Holmes and Vitolo’s dinner dates, they ate at tables set up outside the restaurants.
Of course, in the flush of a new romance, Holmes and Vitolo also might want to enjoy the unexpected joie de vivre that has come with New York City’s expanded outdoor dining program this past summer.
As a New York Post columnist Cuozzo wrote, all the COVID-19-enforced outdoor dining has “improbably, miraculously, worked beyond anybody’s dream.” With sidewalks or whole streets blocked off to accommodate al-fresco dining, the Big Apple restaurant scene has become “relaxed, mellow and fun” over the past summer.
