The actress told ‘British Vogue’ that she was warned the marriage could affect her career, but decided to prioritize love over professional concerns at the time
NEED TO KNOW
- Nicole Kidman has opened up about what it was like marrying Tom Cruise at age 22 and being thrust into the spotlight at a young age
- The actress told British Vogue that she was warned the marriage could affect her career, but decided to prioritize love over professional concerns at the time
- The pair were married for over a decade, adopted two children, and starred in multiple films together
Nicole Kidman is looking back on her marriage to Tom Cruise as a “completely natural” part of her life.
The 59-year-old Oscar winner made rare comments about her marriage to the action star in a new cover story for British Vogue, after the pair tied the knot on Christmas Eve in 1990.
Sharing that she feels very “comfortable” at high-profile events like fashion shows and red carpets, Kidman said, “You have to remember literally, because of who I married at such a young age, I was thrust into it since I was 22. [My life has been] more time like that than not. My memory of it not being that is quite blurry, because I was really young.”
Remarking on getting “married so young” to Cruise, the Practical Magic star noted, “Suddenly I was 22, 23 years old and I had this huge movie star husband. But it just seemed completely natural. We just fell madly in love and it was that simple.”
Credit: Vinnie Zuffante/Getty
Kidman said she was warned against the union at the time.
“I remember people saying to me, ‘OK, well this is really going to affect your career,’ ” she recalled to the outlet. “I’m like, ‘I don’t care. I’m in love. I want to be married.’ And then I was his ‘wife’ and they were like, ‘See, we told you.’ I’m like, ‘So what? I wasn’t meant to marry the man I love? Of course I’ll throw my career away. I don’t care.’ ”
Kidman and Cruise stayed together for more than a decade, before they officially divorced in August 2001. The pair — who adopted children Bella, 33, and Connor, 31 — originally met on the set of the 1990 film Days of Thunder.
They went on to star together in several films including Ron Howard’s Far and Away (1992) and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999).
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Reflecting on her marriage to Cruise during a 2013 Vanity Fair interview, Kidman previously said of their split, “I had a lot of time alone, which was really, really good, because I was a child, really, when I got married. And I needed to grow up.”
She went on to marry singer Keith Urban in 2006. The former pair announced their split in September 2025 after 19 years of marriage. They share daughters Sunday Rose, 18, and Faith Margaret, 15, together.
In 2018, Kidman revealed in an interview with New York Magazine why she didn’t like to talk about her marriage to Cruise.
“Being married to Tom Cruise at 22 is something I’m always reluctant to talk about, because I’m married now to the man who is my great love, and it almost feels disrespectful,” Kidman said at the time of her then-husband Urban.
“That said, I got married very young, but it definitely wasn’t power for me — it was protection,” she continued. “I married for love, but being married to an extremely powerful man kept me from being sexually harassed. I would work, but I was still very much cocooned. So when I came out of it at 32, 33, it’s almost like I had to grow up.”
Read the full article here
