Tom Cruise bought first motorcycle at age 10

Tom Cruise bought and crashed his first motorcycle at the age of 10.

The 50-year-old actor is renowned for his on-screen stunts and Tom admitted he was always a daredevil, saving up to buy a Yamaha when he was just a child, which he promptly crashed into his neighbours' cars.

He told chat show host Jay Leno: 'My first motorcycle was a little Yamaha. My [single] 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. I was working on the motorcycle, she left on Friday, and I had [an elderly] neighbour who was always supposed to kind of watch over us.

'Our neighbours had these two beautiful cars that they loved, and they kept them very close together. Of course it's 2 in the morning and I'm so excited - I've just got to ride it a little bit. I've got to hear the engine! Me and my buddies were out there 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. It was like a cartoon! I thought I was knocked out, but I was just kind of quickly staggering for the bike because the lights came on in the neighbour's house. I got it in and tucked it in the basement.'

While Tom managed to keep the incident from his mother, he eventually confessed to her when he got older.

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