Advertisement

Nicole Kidman makes rare comments about Tom Cruise marriage

Nicole Kidman says her relationship with Tom Cruise taught her an important lesson about love in the limelight.

The Oscar winner, 54, appears on the cover of October's Harper's Bazaar in which she talks about her marriage to Keith Urban. She was also asked about her first marriage — and whether she felt annoyed by the press focusing so maniacally on the relationship.

"I was young. I think I offered it up?" she said of being married to her Days of Thunder and Eyes Wide Shut co-star, 59, from 1990 to 2001. (The exes, who reportedly disagreed on the merits of Scientology, share daughter Bella Kidman Cruise, 28, and Connor Cruise, 26.)

However, that high-profile divorce that made headlines around the globe for years didn't cease her openness toward love — or what she shares publicly about it to this day.

"Maybe I've gotten a bit more trepidatious, but I'm always trying to be as open as possible," explained Kidman, who went on to have a brief engagement to Lenny Kravitz and then marry Urban in 2006. "I just prefer to live in the world that way. I'm wary at times, and I’ve been hurt, but at the same time I much prefer a warm approach rather than a prickly shutdown approach."

She added, "My husband, Keith, says that when he met me, he said, 'How’s your heart?' And I apparently responded, 'Open.'"

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 05: Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban attend the 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 05, 2020 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, in 2020, have been married for 15 years. (Photo: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

Kidman claimed she was more into the country singer, 53, than he was to her when they met in 2005 at an event called G’Day L.A., which honors notable Australians. Urban gave a speech in which he gushed about his mother and Kidman's sister Antonia, her date, leaned over to her and said that men seemingly don't get better than Urban.

"'Yeah, but he’s not gonna be interested in me,'" Kidman recalled replying to her sister. "And he actually wasn’t that interested in me at the time — which he now says is not true; he was just sort of intimidated."

Four months later, with the assistance of so-called "angels" pulling strings "behind the scenes," they started talking by phone.

"Yeah. I was really, really into him," she said. “He took a little time. And he's like, 'That is so incorrect, Nicole.'"

Kidman doesn't pretend that marriage isn't work, but said it's the good kind.

"We’re always working through stuff, but it's very much love-based, so there’s an enormous amount of give and take," she said. "I want him to have the best life he can have, and he responds the same way."

Despite being burned in the past, she still shares steamy pix of them together — including this one for their 15th anniversary. She said it was taken at Madonna and Guy Oseary's Oscars party in 2017 by famed French photographer JR.

"He was like, 'You want to have a photo taken?'" she recalled. "And I was like, 'Baby, kiss my neck.' And he did that," referring to the lick.

Kidman said she and Urban "really love parenting together," referring to daughters, Sunday, 13, and Faith, 10.

The superstar actress admits she does "not have a big social life. I have my work," including recently Nine Perfect Strangers and ahead Being the Ricardos, Roar and The Northman. "I have my family, I have my own inner landscape that I explore. I choose that probably more than I choose to be out partying.”