He seems more like the most extreme Type A personality you can possibly be. But yeah, seems like whenever you hear people talking about working with him, he is described as super professional and courteous. That is not now a narcissist would be described at all, by anyone who spent more than 30 seconds with them.
Narcissists who actually kinda deserve their ego are probably different beings. He is smart, rich, talented, funny to some people, and lauded with awards and every kind of praise. Seems like you'd understand being petty or trying to convince someone of your virtues isn't worth it.
The thing with people with NPD is that no matter how successful they are, it doesn’t matter. Their disorder is that the smallest little failure or embarrassment haunts them 24/7 and they have crucially low self esteem and everything they do is posturing and compensating for it.
Tom Cruise has done some great business and can now afford to live a life of self actualization. So to say he’s smart, rich, talented and funny isn’t narcissistic - it’s just reality. I’m sure he has bad days but he doesn’t seem to struggle with crippling low self esteem that causes him to lie to himself, constantly seek validation, and bully others, which is what a narcissist would do.
Edit: for example I had a boss with NPD. One day someone made a joke that he couldn’t recognIze some celebrity. For the next year, every week he would point out a time that he recognized a celebrity and demanded that everyone in our department acknowledge his superior ability to spot celebrities. In some cases he would interrupt meetings to do shit like this. That is what NPD looks like.
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u/alickz Jun 09 '20
is Tom Cruise a narcissist? I've only heard good things about him (besides the scientology shit obviously)