Marriage to Cruise protected me from abuse, Kidman says
Being married to film heavyweight Tom Cruise shielded Nicole Kidman from the rampant sexual harassment that plagued Hollywood, the actress says.
“I got married very young, but it definitely wasn’t power for me — it was protection,” Kidman writes in an essay published in New York magazine’s latest issue on women and power. “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.”
Kidman, 51, and Cruise, 56, began a whirlwind romance after meeting on the set of 1990’s Days of Thunder. The co-stars said “I do” that year and went on to adopt two children together.
Their marriage came to an end more than a decade later in 2001, but Kidman says their relationship is still hard to discuss.
“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 [Keith Urban], and it almost feels disrespectful,” she writes. Kidman married the country singer in 2006 and they have two daughters together.
But the Big Little Lies star writes that she was forced to “grow up” after splitting with Cruise during her early 30s.
“Of course I’ve had MeToo moments,” she says. “Do I want to expose them in an article? No. Do they come out in my work? Absolutely.
“I’m open and raw. I want to have my well of experience and emotion tapped into, used — and I’m not just talking about sexual harassment. I’m talking about loss, death, the full array of life. But it has to be by the right people so it’s not abused again.”