Tom Cruise fell in love with Katie Holmes at first sight and rushed off to buy an engagement ring after their very first date.

The couple's relationship has been subjected to much scrutiny by public and media critics who have speculated their union was arranged and their romance is a farce.

But the superstar actor - who famously proposed at the top of Paris, France's Eiffel Tower - insists their marriage is the real deal and he has been in love with Holmes since he first set eyes on her.

Cruise tells the 7 December issue of the New York Times Style Magazine, "I knew I wanted to marry Kate when I met her."

And he admits he proposed in a hurry in 2005, because he feared the actress would ask him first: "At one point, I thought she was going to ask me to marry her first and I put her off by changing the subject. I wanted to ask her."

The couple married in November 2006.