Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ split had been “on the cards for almost a year”, a source close to the couple has revealed to heat. Speaking in the wake of their announcement of a divorce at 6pm yesterday, the friend of the stars admitted that they had been separated since April – and that Katie had known things weren’t right since last summer.

“Things had been very strained between them. Tom had been away shooting Rock of Ages in Miami so they hadn’t seen a huge amount of each other anyway but when they did Katie knew that they wouldn’t last much longer. There’s talk that they agreed as early as Christmas that it was over between them.”

Katie's missed calls

Things came to a head in the last two weeks when our source says Katie began rejecting Tom’s calls, as he filmed Oblivion in Iceland. “They had agreed by this point that it was over, but they hadn’t discussed when the split would be announced. Tom was actually shocked that Katie began ignoring him and then she filed for divorce without speaking to him,” said the source.

It was telling that the couple  - who had been married for five and a half years - hadn’t been photographed together since April, when Katie had taken Suri, 6, to visit Tom on set of his new film Oblivion in Baton Rouge. Since then she’s been located mostly in New York (where she filed for divorce this week citing “irreconcilable differences”) a place which the insider says she feels she can be herself: “She loves her life in New York and will stay there while the divorce is being processed. She says that she feels very free there.”

A spokesman for Cruise said last night: "Kate has filed for divorce and Tom is deeply saddened and is concentrating on his three children. Please allow them their privacy."