Tom Cruise: I bought my first motorcycle aged 10

Hollywood star reveals all on the Jay Leno show

ACTOR Tom Cruise is well-known for his on-screen motorcycle stunts but the 50-year old Hollywood star revealed he got his first motorcycle aged 10.

He told chat show host Jay Leno: "My first motorcycle was a little Yamaha. My mother was away working for the weekend and I'd stored it in the basement. I didn't tell her I bought it because I didn't want her to panic right away. I was about 10 years old. I was allowed to get whatever my money could buy."

Cruise went on to talk about his first riding experience and his first crash: "Me and my buddies were out there [in the front yard] and I started this thing up and I was like, 'I'm going to take this right across, just to the front yard. I just wanna feel a bit and then I'll go ride around.' . . . There was a little lip in the front of our yard, and when I started heading toward that lip I thought, 'Man, the throttle's stuck'.

''Now I'm heading for the two cars. I'm like, 'Oh, no, no, no, no, no!' I managed somehow to sneak it right between the two bumpers. The bike went boom, stopped instantly, and I flew off into the next yard like Wile E. Coyote.

Cruise kept the accident from his mother but revealed in the interview that he eventually confessed to her when he got older.

He explained: ''I actually told [my mother] years later. I came clean with everything!''

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