Cruise: 'Scientology cured my illiteracy'

Tom Cruise has credited Scientology with helping him to overcome his "functional illiteracy".

The 46-year-old, who suffered from dyslexia as a child, reportedly told Spanish magazine XL Semanal that he could barely read when he graduated from high school.

"I asked myself if I was normal or an idiot," Cruise said. "I would try to concentrate but I felt anxiety, frustration, boredom.

"When I graduated from high school in 1980 I was functionally illiterate. Nobody gave me a solution and I wanted to know why the system had failed. Finally, as an adult I learned to read perfectly through the method of [Scientology founder] L. Ron Hubbard."