Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise’s rarely-seen son Connor defended after sharing controversial hobby online

The rarely-seen son of Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise has been at the centre of controversy online after posting about one of his hobbies.

Connor Cruise, along with his sister Bella, is the adopted child of Kidman and Cruise, who were married from 1990 until 2001. He and Bella have three siblings, with their mother having two daughters with her now-ex-husband, Keith Urban, while their father has one daughter with his ex-wife, Katie Holmes.

According to PEOPLE, the 30-year-old has dabbled in acting, having a role alongside Will Smith in 2008's Seven Pounds and in the 2012 action film, Red Dawn.

However, he then pivoted to music, releasing his debut song in 2013 and performing as a DJ across the US.

While he isn't often seen in public, his Instagram page usually shows him partaking in one of his biggest passions.

This is sport fishing, with Connor sometimes fishing for large fish such as Grouper.

He has previously attributed his love of fishing to travelling around with his parents, as he told PEOPLE in 2016: "We used to go fishing a lot when I was a little kid.

"I was blessed to travel the world as a young kid, and now I'm travelling the world working."

The musician has shared a few fishing trips on his social media, and recently, he posted a video of a large Warsaw Grouper that he and his friends had caught on a recent trip.

Captioning the video, he wrote: "Got it done yesterday with the boys. 301# Warsaw on the hand crank."

In a post afterwards, he said that the fish was donated to a non-profit food organisation, Fillet for Friends, which provides fresh fish to local food banks.

However, he received some criticism, with one person calling it a 'horrible sight', while another wrote: "This fish was living a beautiful and long life until it was brutally interrupted."

But others were quick to defend Connor, with one replying: "Is this what the world has come to? Are people really making a big deal about this man fishing? Just stop it! This world has become petty and just dumb. So lame! Just stop."

Another posted: "He's only doing what a shark would eventually do to these fish. Luckily, You cant bully them for doing the same thing as he does."

The Warsaw Grouper is currently listed as endangered by the National Marine Fisheries Service in the US. However, regulations on the species in Florida allow recreational anglers to land the fish without a license, subject to certain rules, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The season is open throughout the year and has no minimum size limit, but recreational anglers have a daily bag limit of '1 of each per vessel within four grouper aggregate'.