tom cruise on nicole kidman

The Truth About Nicole Kidman And Tom Cruise's Relationship

The '90s were a simpler time. Long before Tom Cruise would destroy his rep by jumping on Oprah's couch, and decades prior to Nicole Kidman becoming the campy queen of several Twitter memes , they were the ultimate Hollywood power couple. The pair existed at a time before celebrity couple portmanteaus — Cruiseman just doesn't have the same ring to it as TomKat  – and they arguably thrived at a time before  social media oversharing . Though they weren't immune to some saucy bedroom confessions in the pre-smartphone age.

Despite Cruise's apparent agelessness — when he's not channeling Norm MacDonald , that is — his romance with Kidman ended over 20 years ago. During their 11-year marriage, the couple was frequently targeted by the press and had to dodge some pretty outlandish claims about their private life. Similarly, it was thanks to Stanley Kubrick that their love life was laid bare, quite literally, for the whole world to see in the nightmarish erotic thriller "Eyes Wide Shut." 

Since their breakup, there have been questions as to whether the divorce was simply the dissolution of a Hollywood dream, or if more ominous factors were at play. Indeed, the relationship's end has been shrouded in mystery, and it seems Kidman may very well have been sworn to secrecy herself. Whether there are some big little lies at hand or the answers are right there in the open, let's undertake the mission impossible of delving into the truth about Kidman and Cruise's relationship.

It was love at first jaw-drop

In 1989, Nicole Kidman was an up-and-coming 22-year-old who just scored her big break with the thriller "Dead Calm." Meanwhile, Tom Cruise was a 27-year-old seasoned A-lister, hot off the success of Oliver Stone's anti-war film "Born on the Fourth of July."  Cruise saw Kidman in her breakthrough role and was intent on meeting her. Per Vanity Fair , the Aussie actor was in the midst of a press junket in Tokyo when she got a call from the superstar's team. She recalled, "I thought, Wow! This is America! Tom Cruise wants to meet me." She subsequently auditioned for a role alongside Cruise in "Days of Thunder."

Per the  Los Angeles Times , Kidman never thought she'd get married, largely due to the influence of her ardent feminist mother. But when she set eyes on Cruise during her audition, she was smitten. "I remember being so nervous and seeing Tom Cruise drive up in a Porsche ... He got out of the car and walked through and I was like, 'Ah.' My jaw dropped," she told People of that fateful first encounter. 

Per CNN , Cruise fell head over heels for his co-star. The feeling was mutual. "He basically swept me off my feet," Kidman told Vanity Fair. "I fell madly, passionately in love." But there was a problem: Cruise was still married to his first wife, fellow actor Mimi Rogers. The couple divorced the following year and thus began a Hollywood romance for the ages.

The pressure of marriage was too much, too young

At the tender age of 23, Nicole Kidman tied the knot with Tom Cruise, then 28. Per Entertainment Weekly , they celebrated their nuptials in a cozy ceremony under the Colorado sun. By today's standards, 23 certainly appears rather young to settle down. It is, after all, the age that Zellenials perfect their TikTok lip syncing skills . On reflection, Kidman believes that she was far too youthful to devote herself to one person. 

"I was so young when I got married," she told Red (via Today ). "I look back now and I'm like, 'What?'" She contrasted her 20-something self to the female celebs of today, who she suggested have more agency than women in the '90s. "You look at Taylor Swift ... She's 26. I had two kids by the time I was 27 and I'd been married four years." Speaking with GQ (via Daily Mail ), Kidman elaborated on being thrust into fame and marriage when she was barely out of her teens, revealing, "I became famous very young ... because I was the wife of somebody."

But settling down at a young age wasn't all bad. Speaking with the BBC (via People ) in 1998, Kidman acknowledged that she was lucky to have found such a profound and powerful love at such a young age. As she later told the Evening Standard , "I was a baby when I married Tom, but I don't regret any of it."

The twosome had a steamy relationship

Long before the advent of social media exhibitionism — where  Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian's PDA  can be borderline pornographic, as standard – Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were famed for their amorous marriage. Sure, their red carpet smooches look tame compared to today's thirst traps, but the couple's flagrant intimacy caused a stir back in the day. While celebrating the upcoming nuptials of their music exec pal Tommy Mottola in 2000, the lusty twosome couldn't keep their hands off one another. An onlooker dished to People , "They were dancing together and grinding up against each other ... It was very sexy."

Five years earlier, Cruise confessed that there was only one thing on his mind when he first set eyes on his Aussie bride-to-be. "My first reaction to meeting Nic was pure lust," he told Entertainment Weekly . "It was totally physical." Meanwhile, Kidman added that the pair's bedroom antics were very hot and totally off-limits to the public. Still, the it-couple were madly in love and wanted the entire world to know it. 

When Kidman opened up about marital sex to GQ in 2009 (via Tampa Bay Times ), she made the admission, "I've explored strange sexual fetish stuff." Was she into kink with Cruise? Tampa Bay Times seemed to think so. The outlet speculated that she spoke differently about her current marriage to Keith Urban, making it seem like she was alluding to the man with a need for speed with the statement. 

Nicole helped Tom embrace his lighter side

By all accounts, Nicole Kidman appeared to be Tom Cruise's manic pixie dream girl . In a 1992 interview with Rolling Stone , he revealed that he was pretty somber before he met his flame-haired love. However, Kidman was able to bring Cruise out of his shell and made him realize that there's more to life than work, work, work, as Rhianna would say. "For a long time, until I met Nicole, I always put my career ahead of everything ... It's like a whole new life opened up," he gushed. "She's the most important thing to me."

Speaking with Vanity Fair in 1996, Cruise expanded on the meaningful ways in which Kidman changed his life for the better. Reflecting on the first decade of his career, he admitted to living in fear of failure. "And then I met Nic, and it was like 'Oh, my God,'" he enthused. "You read about people whose whole life is just movies ... Your life feeds your work, not the opposite. It's not about me, me, me, me. It's about the other person."

Per Entertainment Weekly , the couple's favorite hobbies included skydiving and playing pool, which they did frequently when staying in London for an extended period. Subsequently, Kidman's previously skeptical friends began to warm to Cruise. While her pal Josh Duigan admitted to disliking him at first, he soon saw another side to Cruise once he realized how much fun the newlyweds had together.

They couldn't have biological children

When Nicole Kidman first met Tom Cruise, her initial desire was not to marry him, but to have his babies. In 2002, she conceded to  Vanity Fair , "I was desperate to have a baby with him ... That's what I wish I'd done." Sadly, the couple struggled to conceive. Opening up to Marie Claire about one of the darkest periods in her life, Kidman revealed that she had an ectopic pregnancy at the start of the couple's marriage, followed by a miscarriage years later. "It was incredibly traumatic for me," she lamented.

Following their bereavement, the couple was met with more devastating news –  it was unlikely they would ever be able to have biological children. Kidman poignantly reflected to  Tatler , "That yearning. It's a huge, aching yearning ... The loss of a miscarriage is not talked about enough. That's massive grief to certain women." Coming to terms with the painful reality, the couple decided to adopt two children, Isabella and Connor Cruise . 

In order to give their kids a healthy upbringing, the couple would alternate their work schedules. As Kidman revealed to the  Los Angeles Times in 1995, she worked in London while her husband stayed at home to take care of the kids, which led to sexist jibes from the British press. Speaking with Vanity Fair the following year, Tom emphasized the importance of shielding his children from the Hollywood limelight.

They had to fend off tabloid rumors

Much like fellow Scientologist John Travolta , Tom Cruise has long faced rumors that he is secretly gay. These claims date back to the '90s when his marriage to Nicole Kidman was under intense tabloid scrutiny. Per the  Los Angeles Times , there was gossip that the couple's PDA-packed romance was nothing more than a cover-up for Cruise's alleged sexuality and that the relationship was merely a marriage of convenience. 

Cruise was enraged by the tattle, telling Vanity Fair in 1996, "I feel very angry about it. I just try to remind Nicole ... 'You have me, you have the kids, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.'" Speaking with Entertainment Weekly , Kidman dismissed the rumors that her husband was gay. "Look, Tom and I are heterosexual, we're together, we're in love," she stressed. "It's weird even to have to answer that question."

But towards the end of their marriage, the gossip was compounded by claims that Cruise had an extramarital affair with another man. As reported by ABC News , it was alleged that the star engaged in a steamy dalliance with Chad Slater, a male pornographic actor. The performer claimed that Kidman caught him and Cruise having sex, which directly led to her filing for divorce. Cruise slammed Slater's assertions as outright lies, insisting that he had never even met the adult star. As a result, he won a lawsuit against Slater for $10 million in 2003.

Scientology allegedly harmed their marriage

It's been alleged that Scientology was as instrumental in setting up Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's marriage as it was in orchestrating their divorce. In his explosive Scientology exposé, "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief" (via  New York Post ), Lawrence Wright alleged that Scientology leader David Miscavige had facilitated Cruise's break up with his first wife Mimi Rogers so the actor could wed Kidman, with whom he had fallen in love. Though Rogers was also a Scientologist, she was apparently expendable. Cruise was prioritized as the future of the controversial church, and so was his desires.

Getting Kidman on board with the Church's doctrine was no easy feat. Miscavige was perturbed by her Catholicism and deemed her to be trouble. Indeed, a source suggested to  People that Kidman wasn't keen on converting to Scientology. The church, who famously opposes psychiatric treatments , also allegedly didn't look kindly upon the profession of Kidman's father, a respected psychologist. Regardless of Kidman's reservations, Isabella and Connor were raised as Scientologists and they remained with the organization long after their mom's divorce from Cruise, per Vanity Fair . 

According to the HBO documentary "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief "  (via The Daily Beast ) the Church allegedly used aggressive intimidation tactics to tear apart the Hollywood sweethearts. Both actors reportedly refused to be interviewed for the film, and neither responded to the claims.

Was Nicole Kidman royally jealous of Lady Di?

Being the celeb power couple of the '90s, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were friendly with another sweetheart of the era: Princess Diana. Per People , the couple were greeted by the royal at the 1992 premiere of "Far and Away" where Maverick and the People's Princess could be seen sharing a charming rapport as they chatted on the red carpet. If royal insiders are to be believed, Diana was crushing on Cruise.

According to Di's stylist, who shared her anecdotes in Judy Wade's book, "Diana: The Intimate Portrait" (via Micky ), she began flirting with Cruise at the premiere. Kidman was reportedly jealous of her husband's chemistry with the Princess of Wales and made her feelings clear to her. Wade wrote, "She [Nicole] kept shooting ... hostile looks as if to say, 'Hands off my man!" However, it appears that she needn't have worried since Cruise wasn't Di's type. Per Express , the royal apparently joked to her personal chef, Darren McGrady, that she would never date Cruise as he was too short for her.

When Diana Spencer was killed in a horrific car accident in France, Cruise told CNN that he was outraged by the media's avarice when it came to the prematurely departed princess. He added about her death, "We're just devastated." Cruise and Kidman joined A-list mourners at her funeral in 1997.

Stanley Kubrick pushed their marriage to the edge

Having met while making "Days of Thunder," Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman played on-screen lovers yet again in the 1992 romance "Far and Away" — notable for featuring some of the  worst affected Irish accents in cinematic history. Kidman regrets having worked with her husband on the film, believing that it led to her being pigeonholed as Mrs. Tom Cruise. "I probably should have done more by myself to be seen independently," she told Entertainment Weekly .

However, it was the power couple's third and final on-screen pairing that truly sent the media into a frenzy. Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" was renowned for its erotic reverie . A short, steamy promo featuring the couple passionately kissing while watching each other in a mirror understandably caused a stir  upon release. The film's shoot, which was supposed to last 3 months but ended up taking 2 years , provided an uncomfortable lens into the couple's marriage. 

Speaking about the lines between reality and fiction becoming blurred for the movie, Kidman told The Hollywood Reporter , "[Kubrick] used the movie as provocation, pretending it was our sex life — which we weren't oblivious to, but obviously it wasn't us." Per Vanity Fair , the couple even won a libel suit against Star magazine for writing that they'd hired a sex therapist for their intimate scenes. Tensions were further heightened when Kubrick encouraged the pair to use their marital woes for the film, something which Kidman described as thrilling but dangerous.

Nicole was protected by Tom's power

The wisdom of Nicole Kidman's feminist mother had clearly rubbed off on the star. As noted by  The New York Times , with her production company the actor devotes herself to uplifting other women in the business. Although she now has the power and authority within the notoriously sexist industry to speak her truth, it wasn't always so easy. As an up-and-coming Hollywood starlet, Kidman often found herself voiceless. Being the wife of a hugely influential man, however, she was protected from the more nefarious aspects of the industry.

Speaking to  The Cut , she explained that the power Cruise wielded in Tinseltown protected her from predators. "I married for love, but being married to an extremely powerful man kept me from being sexually harassed," she noted.

But the problematic nature of this unspoken Hollywood contract — that Kidman was only spared sexual harassment thanks to the man in her life — came at a price. Speaking with Glamour , she confessed that the marriage often left her reduced to the appendage of a powerful man as opposed to a human being in her own right. "I felt I became a star only by association ... I thought, I don't deserve to be here," she admitted. Accordingly, she began to reluctantly subscribe to the notion that she was merely a trophy wife. "I felt it was my job to put on a beautiful dress and be seen and not heard," she added.

Did Tom Cruise cheat on Nicole Kidman?

The new millennium would spell the beginning of the end of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's marriage. In 2000, Cruise began filming "Vanilla Sky" with Penelope Cruz, and soon after he was seen getting cozy with his enigmatic co-star. However, some thought the timeline of the hook-up seemed sus. Per Entertainment Weekly , he didn't divorce Kidman until 2001, despite having spent the entirety of the "Vanilla Sky" shoot with Cruz. There were rumors that the duo had begun a tryst on set.

When Kidman heard of the alleged affair, she was reportedly devastated. "Nicole was just totally in shock," an insider told People (via ABC News ). "She said, 'He flat-out swore to me up and down that there was nothing going on ... 'All this time she's been wondering why the marriage ended, and this could be it." The new couple made it red carpet official just a week after Cruise and Kidman had announced their divorce. 

Still, Cruz has repeatedly maintained that the pair never had an affair. Speaking with The Telegraph  in 2008, the Spanish star insisted that she waited until her former boyfriend was divorced before catching feelings. "I've never fallen in love with someone I'm working with," she stated. "It's always been afterwards." Meanwhile, Cruise vehemently denied an affair when speaking to CNN , but admitted that he was incredibly attracted to Cruz during filming.

Nicole Kidman's life fell apart when they broke up

When the couple split in 2001,  Entertainment Weekly  reported on the various rumors circulating as to why Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman broke up . Some speculated that it was Kidman's refusal to convert to Scientology that tore them apart, while others suggested that the Aussie star wanted to raise the couple's kids in her homeland.

The divorce took its toll on Kidman. "My life collapsed," Kidman told  Vanity Fair . "People ran from me because suddenly it was 'Oh, my God! It's over for her now!'" Meanwhile, Cruise hinted at an acrimonious end in his own Vanity Fair interview. "Things happen in life, and you do everything you can, and in every possible way, and there's a point at which you just sometimes have to face the brutal reality," he conceded. Ouch.

Reflecting on the divorce to  Glamour , Kidman admitted that the split was particularly painful because it triggered memories of her childhood trauma. When Kidman was growing up, her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her mother's unraveling due to the disease led to the whole family's unraveling. As Kidman put it, "If you take care of the woman in the family, the whole family prospers. But when the mother falters, the family falls apart." Thereafter, she opted to stay single for six years to rediscover herself. Speaking with Marie Claire , she admitted to being so devastated that she thought she would never find love again.

They still loved each other

As painful as the divorce was, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise had nothing but praise for each other in the immediate aftermath. Speaking with CNN , Cruise dodged any negative press regarding the split, refusing to address Larry King's suggestion that Hollywood hadn't seen such a highly publicized separation since the days of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. Instead, Cruise lavished praise on his former wife. "I love Nicole. I've always loved her ... That doesn't go away. It will never go away," he explained.

Kidman appeared to feel the same way. In an interview with Ladies' Home Journal (via Today ), she said that while the divorce was a huge shock, she had nothing but love for her former husband. "To me, he was just Tom, but to everybody else, he is huge," she reflected. "But he was lovely to me and I loved him. I still love him."

However, it didn't take long for things to get shady. Kidman famously quipped to David Letterman (per Evening Standard ) that she was happy she could wear heels again after splitting from her petite husband. Then came the bitter custody battle over Isabella and Connor. Although the exes were awarded shared custody, the reality was much different. "They live with Tom, which was their choice," she confessed to Hello (via E! ) in 2010. "I'd love them to live with us, but what can you do?" The former power couple was officially done. 

The bitter aftermath

As the years went by, things slowly grew more acrimonious for Hollywood's beloved former it-couple. In 2022, Variety reported that Nicole Kidman was completely omitted from a montage of Tom Cruise's body of work at Cannes, despite the tribute featuring scenes from all three of the flicks the couple starred in. A year earlier, Harper's Bazaar noted that Kidman wouldn't discuss her divorce from Cruise during interviews.

Meanwhile, Kidman had a furious response when The Guardian brought up the topic during an interview promoting "Being the Ricardos." When the outlet suggested that Lucille Ball's troubled relationship with Desi Arnaz may be comparable to her own failed marriage, Kidman snapped. "Oh, my God, no ... And I would ask not to be pigeonholed that way, either," she retorted. "It feels to me almost sexist because I'm not sure anyone would say that to a man. And at some point, you go, 'Give me my life. In its own right.'"

According to insiders, Kidman has a right to feel bitter. The  Daily Mail reported allegations that Cruise was instrumental in driving a wedge between his ex-wife and the children they adopted. Ex-Scientologist Sam Domingo claimed that Scientology agents brainwashed Isabella and Connor against their mom. In 2015, Kidman was reportedly  snubbed from Isabella's wedding . However, they were rumored to have reconciled in 2020. Meanwhile, Connor has maintained that he has a great relationship with his mom .

Nicole Kidman Made a Rare Comment About Her Marriage to Tom Cruise

Nicole Kidman gave a super rare insight into her marriage to Tom Cruise in a new interview with the New York Times Magazine.

• Nicole Kidman spoke about her marriage to Tom Cruise in a new interview with the New York Times Magazine.
• Kidman reflected on the experience of filming Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut with her then husband.
• "We were happily married through that," she said. "Maybe I don’t have the ability to look back and dissect it. Or I’m not willing to."

It's incredibly rare for Nicole Kidman to speak about her marriage to Tom Cruise , which lasted from 1990 to 2001. But in a new interview with the New York Times Magazine , Kidman opened up about a specific period in their relationship, when the couple were shooting the 1999 Stanley Kubrick movie Eyes Wide Shut .

First, Kidman dismissed the "fallacy" that she and Cruise had a difficult time working on the movie, which took far longer to shoot than expected. "We loved working with him. We shot that for two years. We had two kids and were living in a trailer on the lot primarily, making spaghetti because Stanley liked to eat with us sometimes. We were working with the greatest filmmaker and learning about our lives and enjoying our lives on set," she said.

"We would say, “When is it going to end?” We went over there thinking it was going to be three months. It turned into a year, a year and a half," Kidman continued. "But you go, As long as I surrender to what this is, I’m going to have an incredible time. Stanley, he wasn’t torturous. He was arduous in that he would shoot a lot. But I’d sit on the floor of his office and talk, and we’d watch animal videos."

Kidman went on to reject the suggestion that the movie, with its recurrent theme of infidelity, put a strain on her relationship with Cruise. "That fits the narrative that people came up with, but I definitely didn’t see it like that. We were happily married through that," she said. "We would go go-kart racing after those scenes. We’d rent out a place and go racing at 3 in the morning. I don’t know what else to say. Maybe I don’t have the ability to look back and dissect it. Or I’m not willing to." Interesting!

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Emily Dixon is a British journalist who’s contributed to CNN, Teen Vogue, Time, Glamour, The Guardian, Wonderland, The Big Roundtable, Bust, and more, on everything from mental health to fashion to political activism to feminist zine collectives. She’s also a committed Beyoncé, Kacey Musgraves, and Tracee Ellis Ross fan, an enthusiastic but terrible ballet dancer, and a proud Geordie lass.

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Nicole Kidman reflects on marriage to Tom Cruise

Once upon a time, Nicole Kidman was married to Tom Cruise -- and now she's reflecting on that time in her life, specifically how the media treated her.

When asked by Harper's Bazaar if she was annoyed with the media's obsession over the high profile relationship, the Australian actress replied, "I was young. I think I offered it up?"

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"Maybe I've gotten a bit more trepidatious, but I'm always trying to be as open as possible. I just prefer to live in the world that way," Kidman continued before a moment of silence. "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."

Referencing her current husband, country singer Keith Urban, the "Nine Perfect Strangers" star added, "My husband, Keith, says that when he met me, he said, 'How's your heart?' And I apparently responded, 'Open.'"

MORE: Keith Urban reveals how he knew Nicole Kidman was 'the one'

Kidman and Cruise were married in 1990 and divorced in 2001. They share two children, a 28-year-old daughter, Isabella, and a 26-year-old son, Connor.

The "Big Little Lies" star and Urban wed in 2006 and also share two children, daughters Sunday Rose, 13, and Faith Margaret, 10.

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Nicole Kidman Got Asked About Her Marriage To Tom Cruise And It Didn't Go Well

Senior Reporter, HuffPost

Aside from the photos of Nicole Kidman jumping for joy after finalizing her divorce from Tom Cruise popping up every so often, the one-time power couple has largely faded from our collective pop culture memory.

Both stars tend to keep their eyes mouths wide shut when it comes to their marriage, so perhaps that’s why Kidman was caught off guard by a question about Cruise in an interview with The Guardian published on Sunday.

Reflecting on her role as Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin’s “Being The Ricardos” — a look at the comedy icon’s romance with Desi Arnaz — the Oscar-winner explained how the project takes a different approach to depicting love.

“It’s about a creative and romantic relationship that doesn’t work out,” she said. “But from it come some extraordinary things. And I love that. I love that it’s not a happy ending.”

“This film says you can make an extraordinary relationship thrive and leave remnants of it that exist forever. Yeah, that’s really gorgeous,” she continued. “You can’t make people behave how you want them to, and sometimes you’re going to fall in love with someone who isn’t going to be the person you spend the rest of your life with. And I think that’s all very relatable. You may have kids with them. You may not, but they were very much in love.”

The response prompted reporter Eva Wiseman to ask, with what she described as “exquisite care,” whether Kidman was referring on some level to her marriage to Cruise.

Wiseman noted that Kidman “[choked], just a little” and became “angry” before fully shutting down the line of inquiry.

“Oh, my God, no, no. Absolutely not. No. I mean, that’s, honestly, so long ago that that isn’t in this equation. So no,” Kidman said. “And I would ask not to be pigeonholed that way, either. It feels to me almost sexist, because I’m not sure anyone would say that to a man. And at some point, you go, ‘Give me my life. In its own right.’”

Kidman and Cruise fell in love after co-starring in 1990’s “Days of Thunder” and got married that year. They adopted two children together and later split after 11 years of marriage amid rumors that Cruise’s devotion to Scientology drove a wedge between them.

In 2006, Kidman tied the knot with singer Keith Urban, with whom she now has two daughters. Cruise, meanwhile, married Katie Holmes in 2006. They also later divorced.

Elsewhere in the Guardian interview, Kidman dodged a question about raising her daughters with Urban, saying, “No, I have to really protect them. I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut.”

Kidman has remained tight-lipped about her relationship with Cruise and their two children, Isabella and Connor, who, like their father, are reportedly practicing Scientologists.

But she back in 2018, she did comment on why she prefers not to discuss the marriage publicly and how Cruise’s star power protected her from sexual harassment early on in her career.

“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,” Kidman wrote in an essay for New York magazine. “That said, I got married very young, but it definitely wasn’t power for me ― it was protection.”

Earlier this year, she reflected on the intense media scrutiny that surrounded her relationship with Cruise, explaining that she’s become a “bit more trepidatious” about sharing personal details with the press.

“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 told Harper’s Bazaar in September. “My husband, Keith, says that when he met me, he said, ‘How’s your heart?’ And I apparently responded, ‘Open.’”

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Nicole Kidman opens up about her marriage to Tom Cruise

"It definitely wasn’t power for me — it was protection," she said.

In an essay for New York Magazine's "Woman and Power" series , Nicole Kidman opened up about her past marriage to Tom Cruise, sharing some incredible insight about her high-profile relationship.

The actress and producer married the movie star in 1990 and divorced in 2001. The couple adopted two children, Isabella and Connor.

(MORE: Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie to join Charlize Theron in Fox News movie)

"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," Kidman, 51, wrote.

Kidman married the Australian rocker in 2006 and they also have two children, Sunday and Faith.

She said she was decided to talk about her ex because of #MeToo movement.

"That said, I got married very young, but it definitely wasn’t power for me — it was protection," she said. "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."

"I married for love, but being married to an extremely powerful man kept me from being sexually harassed."

And she admitted that she did experience harassment at one point in her career.

"But do I want to expose them in an article? No," she wrote. "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."

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Cruise Speed

By Kevin Sessums

‘Don’t be scared,” Tom Cruise’s voice crackles inside my ears. “Sometimes this thing tends to take off like a raped ape.” Cruise and I are strapped into the twin cockpits of a tiny Pitts S-2B biplane and can speak to each other only through the headsets attached to our khaki flight caps. He is piloting the aircraft from the cockpit behind me, and again his voice comes crackling forward as we barrel down the runway. “Hold on!” he warns, revving the engine, and with one giant grunt that sounds even more violent than a riled-up gorilla we go howling upward over the small, private Santa Monica airport.

Rob Reiner, who directed Cruise in A Few Good Men, has already spelled it all out for me: “Tom likes to jump out of planes. He likes to race cars. He likes to ride motorcycles. He likes to climb rocks. He likes white-water rafting. And now he likes this aerobatic stuff. Let’s just say there’s not a drop of Jewish blood in him.”

I relay Reiner’s remark back to Cruise, and the sound of his enthusiastic laughter lightens my head even more as we lift higher over the Pacific and fly northward along the Malibu coastline. “Look at all that down there,” he instructs me, and I stare at the crowded beachfront property below. From this vantage point, gleaming in the late-afternoon light, it appears to be nothing more than a platinum trailer park. “Pay $6 million and you too can live in a matchbox!” Cruise shouts over the engine. Farther up the coast, his aesthetic sense is better satisfied. “Look out to your left at that light,” he says. “Oh, man, isn’t that fantastic? God! I love this. I love it.”

We fly in appreciative silence for a while before rounding the cliff dwellings of millionaires and hovering short of Santa Barbara. “So what do you say?” Cruise says, interrupting my reverie. “Want to try a loop?”

“Depends on what it takes.”

“I’m just going to roll the nose over and do a kind of 360-degree somersault in the air. Can you handle that?”

“Sure,” I say, not sure at all. Suddenly the sierra and the shoreline and the horizon are all spinning in front of my face. “Oh my God!” I hear myself exclaim. “Oh my Goooooooood! ”

“Are you all right?” Cruise asks, again laughing, after he smooths us out and lines up the plane for another maneuver. “Want to try something else now?”

“Sure,” I say, and this time I am. Tom Cruise has always shared his graceful presence with us on the movie screen, but here, high in the air over California, that presence is not only breathtaking—literally, as he executes a wing roll—but also comforting. In Top Gun , his performance defined by its straight-arrow strut, Cruise gave us the first real glimpse of such grace. Yet there was a boyish taint to it back then, as if it needed all that military hardware and gung-ho movie magic to ratchet up the notches of his manhood. Here, however, the delicate reality of this daredevil aircraft, fueled, as it were, by trust and borne aloft with lighthearted abandon, is a better barometer of Cruise’s newfound maturity. Manhood—like the danger inherent in these aerial stunts he so lovingly executes, like the form it has taken in his fateful and fatherless life, like stardom itself—can be a fragile, lovely thing.

“My take on Tom Cruise is that he’s a great object on-screen,” says New York Times film critic Janet Maslin. “The quality he radiates as an object is this healthy, glowing, all-American well-being. When he just gets out there and plays The Handsome Hunk, then he seems redundant to me. The times he has been great are the times that someone uses that healthy, handsome thing of his, yet leaves him wounded and bewildered by it—in Born on the Fourth of July , or in Rainman , to some extent, or The Color of Money , and even The Firm. Sometimes he can give off this kind of anguish that can get right to you, and other times he’s as bland as he was in Far and Away . . . . A lot of the intelligence about how he comes across comes from his directors, which is, in a way, the real sign of an old-fashioned movie star.”

“Cruise is both a genuine star and a genuine actor, although not always at the same time,” concurs Maslin’s fellow critic Roger Ebert. “His work in Born on the Fourth of July was one of the more amazing performances in recent American movies. Few others with his star appeal would have had that depth and range. I know there are a lot of people who are infuriated by his casting in Interview with the Vampire , but I’m keeping an open mind.”

An infuriated Anne Rice, who wrote the novel on which Vampire is based, certainly has not kept an open mind about Cruise’s being cast as the vampire Lestat, whom she describes as blond and towering and filled with a lascivious civility. She originally wrote the role with actor Rutger Hauer in mind, and has said that casting Cruise as Lestat is as absurd as casting Edward G. Robinson as Rhett Butler. Although Rice retains a screenwriting credit on Interview with the Vampire, along with the film’s director and real writer, Neil Jordan, she interpreted the choice of Cruise as a personal affront to both her and her very vocal fans, and startled everyone involved with the film with the vehemence of her campaign to discredit the actor and the movie.

By Erin Vanderhoof

By Bess Levin

By Savannah Walsh

“I was astounded by the flak we’ve gotten, especially since Tom Cruise is certainly one of the two or three greatest actors of his generation,” says David Geffen, the producer of Interview with the Vampire, who has known Cruise since he starred in one of Geffen’s earlier productions, Risky Business. “I thought to myself, People are such fools when it comes to these kinds of issues. If you let fans make the movies, as opposed to the people who make them, then you wouldn’t have ended up with The Godfather, because back then Al Pacino was just this thin little guy. So it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t bother me. The only thing that bothered me about people’s reaction to Tom was that I know how sensitive Tom is and I knew that it would hurt his feelings.”

“Tom keeps putting himself at risk as an artist,” says Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of the Walt Disney Studios, who has known the 32-year-old actor for more than a decade. Although Cruise has his share of actor buddies, he has been befriended by an inordinate number of Hollywood power brokers, who have tired of having to treat their male stars as prodigal sons and are relieved to have a successful actor in their midst who is a well-behaved professional. “Tom has done it again with Vampire ,” Katzenberg continues. “For all of us—as moviegoers and fans—there’s nothing more fun than watching someone like that walk on a high wire. I’ve even experienced that with him when it’s going over falls at the Grand Canyon, and his saying, ‘O.K.! Let’s carry our boat back up there and do it again!’ He does it for sport. He does it for craft. He does it for art. He does it for life .”

“It always helps if one is controversial in casting a movie,” Neil Jordan says, sighing heavily, obviously tired of having to talk about his decision to hire Cruise to essay Lestat. “I just thought that if Tom was willing to go the distance this character demands—and he was—then we could end up with something quite extraordinary, and we did.”

Geffen allowed me to see an early cut of the film at his Malibu screening room in July. Though Warner Bros, will not release the picture until November, it was already apparent that Jordan, who directed The Crying Game and Mona Lisa , has again come up with a cinematic mood piece as troubling as it is intelligent. Cruise has never done anything like it. The golden boy of the American cinema willingly tarnishes his good-guy image with a startlingly sensual and stirringly malevolent portrayal. Yes, he’s blond in the film. And, yes, his lust is palpable.

As I was adjusting my eyes from the darkness of the screening room to the sunlight outside, the phone rang. It was Cruise, wanting to know my opinion about the film even more than he wanted to know the one I was forming about his performance. “Well, I can tell you this,” I said, goading him a bit, “you’ve created a whole new male screen icon: the bitch god. You’re frighteningly bitchy in this.”

“Good!” he goaded back. “A bitch god! I love it!”

As for the homoerotic strains that are so prevalent in Rice’s novel, they are there for anyone who cares to strain for them. The film adaptation still involves Lestat and the dynamics of his relationship with his beautiful male companion, Louis, portrayed by Brad Pitt, who relates the story in flashbacks to an interviewer he meets in San Francisco, a role taken on by Christian Slater after the death of River Phoenix. Lestat and Louis even transform a little girl named Claudia into a vampire so that they can have a daughter together and create for themselves their own set of 19th-century family values. Later, after the violent loss of Lestat, Louis and Claudia escape New Orleans and make their way to Paris, where another older vampire, played by Antonio Banderas, falls for the alluring Louis.

“The homoerotic stuff is what everyone talks about, isn’t it?” Jordan muses. “But these guys are beyond sex. Their lust is for blood. Yet it is a very erotic movie. It was great fun for me making an erotic movie without having to shoot bodies humping all the time.”

“This is the way I feel about the homoerotic issue: I don’t care either way,” confesses Cruise. “It’s nothing I worry about. I’m an actor and I play a character. I do find it a very sensual movie, because everything that Lestat does he does out of love and longing — yet he’s sadistic. Lestat certainly loves Louis. He wants a companion. And Louis is beautiful; Lestat finds him so. But, also, Lestat created this creature that Louis has become, so he is very fatherly about it.”

Tom Cruise is wearing a baseball cap that looks to be one or two sizes too big for him. Disheveled, unshaven, he got out of bed exactly 24 minutes ago, yet is still only a few minutes late for our breakfast appointment in a suite at the Hotel Bel-Air, which he and his wife, actress Nicole Kidman, called home during the first few months they were together. About a year and a half ago, Cruise and Kidman moved into a home with more real-life dimensions after the adoption of their daughter, Isabella, then but a few days old. “Getting up at 9:30 in the morning now is sleeping to me,” Cruise tells me in the way new fathers have of complaining and bragging at the same time. “I remember when I used to go out and party all night and sleep in till noon or one o’clock. Now 9:30 seems decadent.”

“So what was it like the first time you changed your daughter’s diapers?” I ask.

“I was scared to death. Scared to death!” he says, yawning and chuckling at himself. “I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

“Maybe you should have put a pair on Nicole,” I suggest, “and practiced on her first.”

“Yeah! That’s not so bad!” he says with a laugh. “And then she could change a pair of mine! I could call her up from the office. ‘Hey, honey! You gotta come up. Time to change my diapers!’” His laughter leads him to sweeter thoughts. “Seeing Nicole with Isabella, I see a whole other side to her. Sometimes I just stand back and watch. Or I’ll walk up the stairs and just stand there and listen to them play. Sometimes Nic will forget to turn that little baby-speaker thing off, and I’ll just sit there and listen to them. Those are the little moments in life when you stop and think, I want to make sure I’ll remember this forever.” His laughter has ceased, and creases creep across his forehead. “I’m a daddy,” he whispers, more to himself than to me. “I’m a daddy.”

“Why did you and Nicole want to become parents at this point in your careers?” I ask, knowing how busy each is. Cruise has announced that he will star in his own production of a screen version of the television classic Mission: Impossible ; Kidman has recently finished To Die For , directed by Gus Van Sant, and has been cast not only as Val Kilmer’s love interest in the third Batman installment but also as Isabel Archer in Jane Campion’s production of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady. “Was it because the adoption itself came through and you couldn’t really control the timing of it?”

“We talked about children from time to time, but there was always the work ,” he says. “But then we went, When is it ever going to be the right time? That’s how the conversation started. You’re lying in bed at night and you’re trying to sleep, so you roll over and you go, What would happen if we had this in our life? . . . One of the things that Nic and I talk about is that now suddenly we’re a family. We’re at that point where we’re trying to define where we are. Can we still party? Are we really boring? Oh, my God . . . we’re old! Oh, shit! What the fuck do we do? ... I don’t know what it was, but for many years I was working working working working. Actually, before we started Interview with the Vampire I wanted to see Paris. We went over and walked through all these beautiful old homes and museums. And then— we just went wild. I would end up sleeping all day, and we would go out to clubs all night and party. Drink fine wine and dance till dawn. You need those outlets from time to time. And you need someone with whom you can go absolutely wild.”

“He’s quite eccentric,” Nicole Kidman tells me on her way to drive Isabella to the swimming lessons she has been taking since she was eight months old. “He’s just an odd one. He has his own little quirks and mannerisms. He’s kind of wild—and I love that. Somebody once told me that they were coming back from a rafting trip and Tom was about to go up in one of these choppers. This guy was terrified of choppers, but there were three different ones chartered for them and all these people were scurrying to get on them to be lifted out of this small valley. This guy said, ‘O.K., I’m going to get in the chopper that Tom Cruise gets in, ’cause God isn’t going to kill him.’ That’s kind of what I think, too. He’s got that feeling about him as a person. Even when you get in a racecar with him. Or in a plane.”

“Or in a marriage?” I ask her.

“Well, yeah. I had three very strong relationships before I met Tom, but I was never going to get married. Never. But he was just the most incredible, unusual man I’d ever met. I think in a relationship you have to work at keeping your partner in love with you. You can’t just take it for granted. And I knew that was something he wouldn’t take for granted. That’s something that he is amazingly creative about. He’s amazingly romantic. He puts so much work into us.”

“Do you plan to adopt more children?”

“Well, I’d like to give birth,” Kidman confesses, “ and adopt more children. We plan to do that. Definitely.”

“Was there a reason you chose adoption for your first child?”

“No. It just happened that way,” she says. “Isabella was meant for us. I think when things come into your life at a certain time you have to take them. It’s destiny.”

Cruise and Kidman met when they co-starred in Days of Thunder . “It was that special connection when you recognize your soul mate,” he says. “She is a person who understands. It was as if a whole new life had started for me.” In fact, it had, for he had only recently divorced his first wife, actress Mimi Rogers. When asked now about that first marriage, Cruise is uncharacteristically curt. “It was a long time ago. I really don’t think about it.”

What he has begun to think about, and to come to terms with, is his deceased father. Born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, he dropped his father’s name after his parents’ divorce, when his mother moved Cruise and his three sisters from Ottawa, Ontario, to Kentucky. There she remarried and later moved the family to New Jersey. Cruise saw his father, an electrical engineer, one last time a few years ago, when he visited him in a hospital as he lay dying of cancer. Until now he has steadfastly refused to discuss the man’s absence from his life.

“Was your divorce from Mimi like a second divorce for you?” I venture. “You purposefully dropped your father’s name. One could say you’ve been divorced twice in your life.”

A silence seeps into our conversation, and suddenly Cruise, who is famous for his self-control, loses his composure. This surprises him as much as it does me. Quickly, he thumbs the water from his eyes. “I never thought of it in those terms,” he finally says as more tears well up. He clears his throat. “You know, I loved my father very much,” he whispers. “I think sometimes what it would have been like for him to see me with my daughter. . . . My father never saw any of my movies before he died, but he had pictures of me on the wall in his hospital room. He told his nurses how he had made a mistake with me and my sisters.”

Cruise stops again and composes himself. “When I look at Isabella,” he tells me, “I finally realize that there is no possible way that a parent can’t love their child.”

“What was it like being the only male in your family after your mother’s divorce? You were still so young—around 12, I believe.”

“It was all very confusing,” he admits. “It was frightening. . . . There was a lot of frustration. I was a wild kid. I’d cut school and everything, but it really had to do with my wanting always to push the envelope to see, Where do I stand with myself? How far can I go?”

A few days later, after our aerobatics, his thoughts return to his father. “He was a very complex individual and created a lot of chaos for the family before we left him,” he remembers. “If I came home from a fight and I had lost, then I had to go back out there and do it again. He was one of those guys: ‘You go out there and you don’t lose. Period.’ And I certainly wasn’t the biggest guy on campus.”

“Was it an insistence that you had to be macho?”

“No. It was more not losing. It also had to do with his own way of loving me. He was the kind of guy who really got picked on a lot at school himself when he was growing up. He had also been small, though he ended up being six foot two. People had been quite brutal to him. Inside, I believe he was a really sensitive individual. He just didn’t want me to have to go through the kind of pain that he had felt in his life. I think that all this was a solution to solving that problem. He was very, very . . . ah . . . tough on me. Very, very tough. In many ways.”

“Physically?”

“Physically. Yeah.”

“Would you call it abuse?”

“Yeah. I mean, now you’d call it abuse. As a kid, I had a lot of hidden anger about that. I’d get hit , and I didn’t understand it.”

“Was it also directed toward other members of your family?”

“No,” he says, his voice now as quiet and tough as a 12-year-old’s. “No. It was just toward me.”

“So there had to be a lot of forgiveness that had to happen on your part.”

“Oh, yes. There was a lot, a lot of anger about it. Yet there was also a complexity to it, because it wasn’t always like that. He could actually be quite loving.”

“But that’s the difficulty in those types of relationships, isn’t it? The violence is not Pavlovian or predictable, because it’s not based on your behavior. If you believed that, then you’d have to believe that you were responsible for it. And you weren’t.”

“Yeah. Exactly. But it’s not ever black-and-white, is it?”

“What was that last visit with him like?”

“He allowed me to go to the hospital to talk to him under the condition of not asking him any questions. But he said to me before he died, ‘Look, I’m gonna get better, and you and me are gonna go and have a steak and a beer and talk about the whole thing.’ Well . . . ah . . . that dinner never . . . eventuated ,” Cruise says, shaking his head at it all. He looks up from the memory of that day and finally offers up a smile—not that ingratiating piece of grillwork he can deliver by rote when the cameras are rolling, but a grin so ironic and grown-up it would break the most childlike of hearts.

‘Tom wants to please, and with someone of his stature that’s pretty enchanting, since that’s usually the first thing to erode in major movie stars,” Holly Hunter tells me. Hunter, who won the Oscar for best actress last year for her performance in The Piano , was also nominated for best supporting actress for her work with Cruise in The Firm . “I couldn’t speculate where that comes from,” she says. ”Tom is breathing rare air, and he responds to it in a unique way. He’s very, very un spoiled.”

“I wasn’t exactly catered to, from my point of view,” says Cruise about growing up in a household of women, which could be credited with his need for approval. His mother worked four jobs to support her four children and he insists that she taught him everything he knows today about courage and the unconditional love he feels for his wife and child. “She is an incredibly noble woman,” he says.

“He’s always been more of my big brother, rather than my little brother,” says Cruise’s oldest sister, Lee Anne Haigney, who lives in Los Angeles and works for Cruise. His other two sisters still live in New Jersey—one is a teacher, the other owns a popular Tex-Mex restaurant. “He was very caring and protective of us,” says Haigney. “Whenever any of us girls started dating anybody we were serious about, having them meet Tom was a big deal. His opinion has always weighed very heavily with all of us.”

Steeped in such a strong sense of family, Cruise has dealt with his stardom astoundingly well. “I became famous at a very young age and didn’t know who I was,” he says. “All of a sudden it happened, and it seemed like my world shrunk at first. I remember thinking at one point, O.K., I could really lose it now. Whatever it is—drugs or surrounding myself with people who would yes me to death. When I think back on it, sometimes I wonder how I got through all that stuff.”

“My own stardom, fortunately, came much slower,” says Paul Newman, who worked with Cruise in The Color of Money. “It’s tough when it happens as fast as it did with Tom. He’s a very savvy kid . . . a very savvy man. So far he’s kept his head on his shoulders, but he’s one of the very, very few.”

“It doesn’t happen by accident that someone at such a young age becomes such a world-renowned movie star,” claims Sherry Lansing, chairman and C.E.O. of the motion-picture group of Paramount Pictures, where Cruise’s own production company, run by Paula Wagner, is headquartered. “Tom not only knows about all aspects of this business, he, more importantly, wants that knowledge.”

“Now I think my life has actually opened up more because of my stardom,” Cruise claims. “When I first started acting, it was not only a whole new generation of actors coming up, but also a whole new generation of film. The dynamics of making movies over the past 15 years has changed. The pressures are much more significant. At the beginning it was all about becoming a student, for me, and pushing myself, and not ever pretending to know something that I didn’t know about. I was lucky to work with the masters and have them be incredibly generous to me.”

The list of his co-stars and directors is indeed impressive: Martin Scorsese, Barry Levinson, Rob Reiner, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, Sydney Pollack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, and now Neil Jordan. On-screen in Vampire, however, the tables have turned, and it is Cruise who is playing the mentor in the story. “It’s an interesting thing to see,” his newest co-star, Brad Pitt, tells me. “When he comes on the set, the set works differently. It changes the rotation of the planets a bit.”

“Tom has had the burden of being a star since he was a teenager,” says David Geffen. “The only other person I know of who had to deal with it in a similar kind of way is Bob Dylan. It’s very hard to have people that focused on you from such a young age. . . . I think Tom has survived it better than anybody else I know who has had that kind of scrutiny and that kind of attention and that kind of adulation. It can be awful.”

Part of the burden of stardom is suffering all the rumormongering. In Cruise’s case, the rumors involve the possibility that he is a closeted homosexual. “Why do you think people keep whispering about your being gay?” I ask him.

“First of all, I don’t think it’s an indictment,” he tells me. “But I hadn’t heard those rumors till about three months ago myself. . . . I don’t know why they say it. I’ve heard everything from I’ve cheated on my wife to my wife was there on the set of The Firm because she was pissed off about my love scene on the beach. It’s not true, but people are going to say what they want to say.”

“Do you think an actor can be open about his homosexuality and still be as giant a movie star as you are?”

“I believe now that anything is possible. Maybe I’m being naïve. But I think that is becoming not a big issue.”

“Of course, that’s coming from your perspective as the highest-paid movie star in Hollywood.” (Cruise reportedly receives between $15 and $20 million per picture.)

“That’s right,” he says, laughing at the very thought. “So what the fuck do I know? Me personally? I don’t care. I don’t care if people are Martians. I really don’t care. Straight. Gay. Bisexual. Catholic. Jewish.”

“Or Scientologist?”

“Yeah. Or Scientologist.”

Cruise’s association with the Church of Scientology—a system of beliefs that helps one order one’s life according to the exact principles set down by the church’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard—is even more controversial than the rumors that he is homosexual. Exposés have been written about the church’s increasing power in Hollywood and the paranoia that that has engendered—on all sides. But Cruise dismisses any worry his fans may have about his involvement with Scientology. “It’s a very personal thing,” he insists. “Truly, this is how I feel about it. People come up to me and ask me, ‘So what is Scientology?’ I say, ‘Hey, if you want to know about it, then read a book about it and see what it means to you.’ It’s curious to me why people want to fixate on it. It has certainly helped me. Very much so. It has helped my spiritual life. I enjoy it. But people try to create this whole thing about how Scientology is controlling my money and my career.”

“Yet if you were still a Catholic, and one of your best friends was the Pope, then people understandably would want to talk about that. One of your best friends happens to be Dave Miscavige, who is the head of the Church of Scientology. That does raise questions.”

“Yeah. I know. I see that. I hear stuff about Dave. Dave is attacked all the time. It’s ludicrous. That is really laughable to me, all the stuff that they try to create about this guy who is really such a decent, good individual. He has dedicated his life to something he believes very strongly in. . . . But look at all the stuff that I’ve heard about myself. That I’m a misogynist. I’m a homosexual. I’m brainless. How can I be all of these things? So you’ve just got to go, Hey! What the fuck! Sometimes I’ll turn to Nic and say, ‘Let’s just live our lives and keep doing what we’re doing.’ . . . I could spend my time going around saying that’s not true and that’s not true and that’s not true. But I’ve got so much stuff going on in my life that I’d rather spend the morning with my daughter and my wife and taking care of work.”

Back at the Santa Monica airport, Cruise and I shoot some basketball in the hangar where he houses his biplane and where his black Porsche is parked. He also keeps his customized dressingroom trailer here, which travels with him to his movie sets, as well as his customized gym, which has a hitch attached so that it too can go with him to his farflung locales.

“Oh, man, I’ve got to show you something,” he tells me, sinking one last layup. He runs into the trailer, lined with his many family pictures, and returns with a recent portrait of Isabella, her face pink and happy.

“Do you ever feel guilty having all of this?” I ask him. “Your families. Your career. Your looks. Your wealth. Your stardom. All this stuff here in the hangar.”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah. I tell you, it is a lot of things to have. But I’ve really turned that into ‘O.K., it is what it is. ’ . . . I used to feel really, really uncomfortable about it. I definitely still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, and Nic and I will be talking, and I’ll say, ‘Look at this,’” he says, whispering like a little boy. “‘ Look at this. ’”

“You know, at the beginning of your career, I’d sometimes feel like I was watching a kid playing a man on-screen,” I tell him, “as if I were at a college production and had to sit through a freshman’s attempt at playing, say, Shannon in The Night of the Iguana. ”

“I was a kid,” he counters.

“Are you now a man?”

“I felt like a man many years ago, when I had to take responsibility. Early on, with my mother and my sisters, but also with my career. At a very young age I was making decisions about tens of millions of dollars—not that I think necessarily that is a definition of being a man. Manhood? I don’t know, I guess manhood is having the courage to stand up for what you believe in, no matter what. Even if it costs you your friends. Even if people dislike you for what your choices are.”

“Though you are hugely famous, you have been able to maintain a kind of mystery about yourself. You’re kind of a goodguy enigma. An automaton of talent.”

“Yeah. This is really the first time I’ve ever talked about my family—my baby and my father and everything. . . . People really don’t know me in a lot of ways. David Geffen was telling me that people think I’m so serious. That was curious to me. David is so blunt, which is what I like about him. The thing that really leaves me cold are the people who only say yes yes yes to me. When I ask you something, I really want to hear what you’ve got to say about it. No matter how painful it is , tell me now. It’s going to hurt later on anyway, so tell me now and let’s get it over with.”

I glance out at the biplane, still parked next to the hangar. “I can’t believe you got me up in the air to do those stunts,” I tell Cruise. “But that’s part of being a movie star, I guess, taking us all along on your own thrilling ride. Daring the Devil. Yet aren’t you more careful these days about aerobatics and things like that, because you’re a father? You’ve got to be thinking of Nicole and Isabella when you’re pushing that personal envelope of yours. Aren’t you more aware of the danger now?”

Cruise turns the question back to his decision to play Lestat. “No, not really. . . . You know, I’ve never worked so hard on a character as I did for Interview with the Vampire. I lost 18 pounds. I worked on my diction, my movement. I read out loud from classics so that the language became easy for me. I was nervous about it. But it was that fear that drove me into it. The guy who taught me to race cars would always say to me that he didn’t know whether I was the smartest guy around or the dumbest . . . but I’ve always had this thing that when I was afraid I never backed off. I always went forward.”

Kevin Sessums

By Kase Wickman

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Tom Cruise poses with his and Nicole Kidman’s 2 kids in first photo together since 2009

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Tom Cruise was all smiles in a rare photo with his and Nicole Kidman’s children .

The group shot, which was taken at a December 2023 hockey game and shared by former NFL player Derrick Brooks, recently resurfaced.

“Good Evening, Wow, look who stopped by my office before our [Tampa Bay Lightning] game tonight! @tomcruise,” the retired athlete, 51, gushed in his Instagram caption . “I was a little star struck but played it cool and He said he was too! 😂😂”

In the social media upload, the actor stood with his arm around Brooks while his 29-year-old son, Connor, flashed a thumbs up from Brooks’ other side.

Cruise and Kidman’s daughter, Bella, was also in the photo, with her head poking out along with a dozen other individuals.

The former couple adopted Bella, now 31, in 1992 amid fertility struggles. Connor joined the family three years later.

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Kidman, 56, and Cruise, 61, were married from 1990 to 2001.

The “Mission Impossible” star and his next wife, Katie Holmes, welcomed daughter Suri before divorcing — and Cruise is now estranged from the 18-year-old .

Kidman, for her part, went on to welcome daughters Sunday, 15, and Faith, 13, with husband Keith Urban.

The “Big Little Lies” alum has issued rare statements about Isabella and Connor over the years as they have followed their dad’s Scientology -practicing footsteps, telling Who in 2018 that it’s her “job to love them.”

The actress explained, “I am an example of that tolerance and that’s what I believe – that no matter what your child does, the child has love and the child has to know there is available love and I’m open here.”

She also admitted to “GMTV” viewers in the wake of her divorce that Bella and Connor referred to her by her first name instead of “mom” ( via Hello ).

Kidman’s eldest children have remained mostly out of the public eye.

Bella, who married Max Parke r in 2015, shares art and occasional selfies on social media , while Connor enjoys fishing and has a barbecue business called Connor’s Meatshack.

He has made many appearances with Cruise over the years, with the duo most recently stepping out together in New York City in July 2023.

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Nicole Kidman Shares Rare Insight Into Her Divorce From Tom Cruise in New Interview

"I was young."

• The Nine Perfect Strangers star said she has become "a bit more trepidatious" about sharing parts of her life because she's "been hurt."
• Kidman perviously said she's "reluctant" to share about Cruise out of respect for her current husband Keith Urban, whom she's never shy to gush over.

As an award-winning actress, Nicole Kidman is used to being in the spotlight and sharing parts of her life with the world. But when it comes to her former marriage with actor Tom Cruise , the actress prefers to keep their history (and divorce) private .

When asked by Harper's Bazaa r if she felt discouraged by the media scrutiny around her divorce from Cruise, Kidman chalked it up to her age at the time. "I was young. I think I offered it up?" she said with a laugh.

Kidman and Cruise met in 1989 just before they starred in Days of Thunder together. The former couple married six months later in 1990, and were together for 11 years until Cruise filed for divorce citing "irreconcilable differences" in February 2001.

Kidman said her approach to sharing certain parts of her life has shifted throughout her decades-long career in the spotlight. "Maybe I've gotten a bit more trepidatious, but I’m always trying to be as open as possible," she told Harper's Bazaar . "I just prefer to live in the world that way."

But just because she's private doesn't mean she's aloof. "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 continued. "My husband, Keith, says that when he met me, he said, 'How's your heart?' And I apparently responded, 'Open.'"

Kidman and Keith Urban met in January of 2005 at G'Day LA, an event honoring Australians in the entertainment business. They started dating a few months later and eventually married in June 2006. Kidman said Urban gave a speech at the event in which he reflected on his mother and her sister, who was sitting right next to the Big Little Lies actress, Kidman recalled in the Bazaar interview .

"Well, it doesn't get much better than that," Urban's aunt had said, according to Kidman. "Yeah, but he's not gonna be interested in me," Kidman replied. But in the end, he really was. The actress said "angels" helped set them up in the months to come. "I was really, really into him," she said of the country music star. "He took a little time."

Kidman previously wrote in an essay for The Cut that she was "reluctant" to discuss her former marriage to Cruise in the media because of her current relationship with Urban.

"It almost feels disrespectful [to Keith]," she wrote. "That said, I got married very young, but it definitely wasn't power for me—it was protection. … When I came out of [the marriage to Cruise] at 32, 33, it's almost like I had to grow up."

Today, though, Kidman is never shy about gushing over Urban. The two have been married for 15 years and have two kids together, Faith and Sunday .

"He's such a good man, as I've said before," Kidman told Today of her husband . "I'm married to a really good man. And the kids have a great father and that's a very beautiful thing to be able to say."

Currently an assistant editor at Prevention.com, Nicol is a Manhattan-based journalist who specializes in health, wellness, beauty, fashion, business, and lifestyle. Her work has appeared in Women’s Health, Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Day, Houston Chronicle, Business Insider, INSIDER, Everyday Health, and more. When Nicol isn't writing, she loves trying new workout classes, testing out the latest face mask, and traveling. Follow her on Instagram for the latest on health, wellness, and lifestyle.

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Nicole Kidman dishes on emotional aftermath of Tom Cruise divorce and what led to finding love with Keith Urban

Nicole Kidman isn't afraid to show just how stark of a contrast there can be between Hollywood's glitz and glam, and what's really going on away from the cameras.

In a candid conversation for Dave Karger's forthcoming book 50 Oscar Nights , out on January 23, the Big Little Lies alum reflected on how one of her biggest career achievements, winning an Academy Award, came at one of the lowest points in her personal life.

The Oscar-winning actress was first nominated for an Oscar in 2002 for her role in Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge , though her first win came the following year for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours.

At the time, Nicole was still reeling from her 2001 split from  Tom Cruise , who she had married in 1990, and together they had adopted kids Connor, 28, and Isabella, 31.

Recalling the bittersweet moment she won for Best Actress, she confessed to the book's author: "I was struggling with things in my personal life, yet my professional life was going so well."

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She then noted she wasn't "a big party girl," and wanted to opt out of the famed Vanity Fair after party, but remembered people telling her: "You've got to go. You've got to walk through the party carrying your Academy Award."

Nicole continued: "I said, 'That just feels like gloating, and it doesn't feel humble.' Like, what? You can't walk through carrying the award! That feels really inappropriate. They're like, 'That's what you do.'"

MORE: Nicole Kidman rocks natural curls for solo trip without daughters and husband Keith Urban

MORE:  Nicole Kidman wows with beach selfie as she celebrates with 'love' Keith Urban

She ultimately did attend, but further recalled: "I literally walked in, carried it around, was completely overwhelmed, emotional, shaking, and I didn't enjoy it. I was almost apologetic, which is so stupid," before admitting: "I wish I could have enjoyed it more."

It wasn't long before she headed home and "ended up ordering takeout and eating it on the floor of the Beverly Hills Hotel" with her family, of which she now wrote: "I went to bed alone; I was in bed before midnight," declaring: "If I ever won again, I'm telling you, I'd be out for 24 hours."

Regardless of the bittersweet night, the moment did lead to a reality check about her love life, and Nicole went on: "I sat on the floor of the hotel eating French fries and a burger with my family and went to bed. That's when it hit me. I went, 'I need to find my love; I need a love in my life.' Because this is supposed to be when you go, 'This is ours.'"

Two years later, Nicole met her husband of 17 years, Keith Urban, after meeting at a G'Day USA gala in Los Angeles.

MORE:  Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman look besotted during loved-up reunion in Sydney – see photo

The pair announced their engagement in May of 2006, and tied the knot with a fairy tale ceremony the following month in Sydney's beachside suburb of Manly.

They welcomed their first daughter together, Sunday Rose , 15, in July of 2008, followed by Faith Margaret , 13, in December of 2010.

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Nicole Kidman finally speaks about adopted kids with Tom Cruise

Before she was happily married to Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman welcomed two children in her life with then-husband Tom Cruise.

Now, Kidman is breaking her silence on their two adopted children, Connor and Isabella Cruise, of whom she rarely speaks publicly.

“I’m very private about all that," she said in a new interview with Australian celebrity magazine "Who." "I have to protect all those relationships. I know 150 percent that I would give up my life for my children because it’s what my purpose is.”

Kidman confirmed that Bella, 25, and Connor, 23, are both practicing Scientologists like their father. 

“They are adults," Kidman said about their faith. "They are able to make their own decisions. They have made choices to be Scientologists and as a mother, it’s my job to love them."

Kidman is also the mother to Sunday, 10, and Faith, 7.

In May, Kidman revealed in an interview that one of the reasons she and Cruise did not have any biological children together was that she had a miscarriage early into one of her pregnancies.

“From the minute Tom and I were married, I wanted to have babies,” Kidman told Marie Claire magazine in 2007. “And we lost a baby early on, so that was really very traumatic.”

How Many Films Did Tom Cruise And Nicole Kidman Star In Together?

When we talk about the '90s power couples, there are a few that have stuck in our minds through the decades. Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman , Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow, Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford, and of course, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. These iconic couples had people invested in their relationships from the moment they were spotted arm-in-arm on a red carpet all the way to the second news of their breakups broke.

Kidman and Cruise, in particular, caused a great stir when their marriage ended. Everybody remembers the striking image of Kidman as she strolled the streets in apparent glee as the divorce was finalized. Later, the "Big Little Lies" star opened up about the relationship saying, "Our life together was perfect. It took me a very long time to heal. It was a shock to my system," she added, "That was a great relationship. I think it ran its course. I was really damaged and not sure whether [love and marriage] was ever going to happen again to me," via InTouch Weekly . 

But as we all know, it all worked out in the end. Kidman found love in singer Keith Urban while Cruise went on to marry Katie Holmes and have a child with her before splitting up after six years of matrimony. And while Cruise and Kidman's marriage didn't last, it's safe to say their contributions to cinema will stand the test of time, especially in the movies they did together. 

Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise starred in three movies together

Unsurprisingly, the two Hollywood stars' paths first crossed on the set of the film, "Days of Thunder." In a 2017 interview with People , Nicole Kidman fondly reminisced about the first time she saw Tom Cruise during an audition for her role in the film, "I remember being so nervous and seeing Tom Cruise drive up in a Porsche [. . .] and he got out of the car and walked through, and I was like 'Ah!' and my jaw dropped." She also added that she was intimidated auditioning in front of the movie's executives and Cruise and believed she wouldn't get the part. But she was called and offered the role on the very same day.

Although Kidman had previously gained notoriety from working in the Australian thriller, "Dead Calm," and several other Australian films, she broke through the American film scene with "Days of Thunder." At the time of filming, Kidman was 22, while Cruise was 28 and in the process of getting a divorce from his first wife, Mimi Rogers. In a 1995 interview with Playboy , Rogers would share that the marriage primarily ended due to Cruise's desire to become a monk, which didn't happen. Months before the film's release in 1990, the divorce was finalized and Kidman and Cruise went public shortly after. The actors wed in a private ceremony on Christmas Eve that same year.

Eyes Wide Shut was one of their most notable projects

In 1992, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise appeared in their first film as a married couple, "Far and Away." And while the film did relatively well, their big break as an iconic Hollywood couple would happen in 1999 with Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut." The official trailer for the film featured several explicit scenes, including some steamy kisses shared between the real-life couple.

Unsurprisingly, the couple's chemistry sizzled in the erotic mystery. In 1995, the couple admitted to Vanity Fair that their initial attraction was sexual. Kidman gushed, "I thought he was the sexiest man I'd ever seen in my life." And Cruise also said something similar, "Instant lust, that's what I felt," he added, "I thought she was amazingly sexy and stunning. It grew into love and respect."

Due to the themes of infidelity in the movie and their striking performances, many believed that Kidman and Cruise were tapping into real-life emotions. But Kidman denied these rumors in a 2020 interview with The New York Times , "We were happily married through that," she added, "We would go go-kart racing after those scenes. We'd rent out a place and go racing at 3 in the morning." Sadly, the couple's divorce was finalized in 2001 after 11 years of marriage. Although the pair has been vague about what went down behind the scenes, many have speculated that this might be why they really got divorced . 

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A rare photo of tom cruise with his 2 oldest kids gives a glimpse into their relationship with their dad.

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This is the first time Cruise has posed for a photo with Connor and Bella since 2009, per E! News . At that time, they had attended a soccer game in Los Angeles. Connor has also been photographed with his famous dad throughout the years, mostly at sporting events for the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Maryland Terrapins.

Sources revealed which one of Tom Cruise's kids is "incredibly loyal" to the controversial star. https://t.co/bkPQoguTm9 — SheKnows (@SheKnows) May 5, 2024

It appears that Bella and Connor’s relationship with their dad is better than ever — and that they all three share a love of sports. This is a sharp contrast to their relationship with their mom, who they haven’t been seen in public with since 2007, per Daily Mail . Bella and Connor were raised in the Church of Scientology, which Kidman is no longer a part of.

Bella is more into fashion. She got her start at Holmes and Yang (the fashion line of Katie Holmes) selling t-shirts adorned with her own drawings, per PEOPLE.

The Big Little Lies star, who was married to Cruise from 1990-2001, has occasionally spoken about her relationship with her eldest children. She told The Sun in 2019, per Hello! Magazine , “Motherhood is about the journey. There are going to be incredible peaks and valleys, whether you are an adopting mother or a birth mother. What a child needs is love. They have made choices to be Scientologists. It’s our job as a parent to always offer unconditional love.” 

Kidman is also mom to daughters Sunday, 15, and Faith, 13, with husband Keith Urban. The girls recently made their red carpet debut at the 49 th AFI Life Achievement Award Gala last month, where their mom was being honored for her decades of contributions to the film industry.

“I have a very full life with people that I love,” she told Elle in March. “I’m raising daughters. I’m a wife, I’m a best friend. I’m a sister, I’m an aunt. I have deeply intimate relationships with people. And that, to me, is the meaning of life — and then taking care of what we leave behind, who we leave behind and how we do that, and our sense of respect for that.”

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Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s teen daughters make their red carpet debut with parents

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban made their first public appearance with their teenage daughters.

The family attended the 49th AFI Lifetime Achievement Award Gala at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on April 27, which was held to honor the Kidman as the 2024 recipient of the award.

On the red carpet, Kidman and Urban posed with their two teenage daughters, Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret.

They were joined by more of Kidman's family including her sister, Antonia Kidman, her husband, Craig Marran, nieces Sybella Hawley and Lucia Hawley, and nephew, Alexander Kidman Marran.

At the ceremony, both Meryl Streep and Keith Urban gave touching tributes to Kidman ahead of her award acceptance.

In his speech, the country music star spoke about raising a family with Kidman and said “one of the most beautiful things” is getting to see his wife be a mom. 

“Her and I both come from tight four member family units as well, so we try to do the same for our girls — keeping a tight little unit wherever we are,” Urban said. “We’ll make homes of film locations all over the world.”

In addition to her two daughters with Urban, Kidman adopted two children with her ex-husband, Tom Cruise : Isabella “Bella” Kidman Cruise and Connor Cruise. The “Top Gun” star also shares daughter Suri Cruise with his ex-wife, Katie Holmes.

Though Kidman and Urban tend to keep their daughters out of the public eye, Sunday and Faith have supported their mom before. In February 2021, Kidman, Urban, and their daughters virtually attended the 78th Annual Golden Globe awards when she was nominated for “The Undoing.”

Over the years, Kidman has said on multiple occasions that she wishes that she’d had more children.

“I love, love children,” she told BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire in January 2017. “I love raising children. They make me feel good, and I love being around, and I love the ups and downs, and I love watching them grow and the things they say and teach.”

Kidman told People in January 2019 that had she met Urban before she did in 2005, they “could’ve had 10 of them!” The actor added, “But Keith says, ‘Stop the wanting mind.’ It’s far better to be completely in love and satiated with what you’ve been given, what we’ve been given.”

Though she told Marie Claire Australia that not having more children was one of her biggest regrets, she’s content taking on a motherly role other ways in her life.

“(It’s) OK because I get to mother other children,” she explained. “I have six nieces and nephew, and I’m godmother to 12. I love mothering, I love kids: they’re quirky, funny and unfiltered. And then you get to see them grow and send them on their way.”

Here’s everything to know about Nicole Kidman’s children.

Isabella Kidman Cruise, 31

During her 11-year marriage with Cruise , the couple adopted their daughter, Isabella “Bella” Kidman Cruise , when she was 25.

Kidman doesn’t often discuss her previous relationship with Cruise nor the couple’s children together. She told Australia’s Who magazine in November 2018 that she is “very private” about her eldest children, adding, “I have to protect all those relationships.”

The “Big Little Lies” star added, “I know 150 percent that I would give up my life for my children because it’s what my purpose is.”

Isabella and her brother, Connor, both belong to the Church of Scientology like their father. While Kidman has no affiliation with the organization, she told the magazine that he children “are able to make their own decisions.”

“They have made choices to be Scientologists and as a mother, it’s my job to love them,” she added. “And I am an example of that tolerance, and that’s what I believe — that no matter what your child does, the child has love and the child has to know there is available love and I’m open here.”

As for her personal life, Isabella has been married to Max Parker since 2015. In February 2018, she launched her own fashion brand, BKC. On her website , she sells t-shirts, pins, and tote bags along with prints. 

Connor Cruise, 29

Kidman and Cruise also adopted their son Connor Cruise during their marriage.

Much like his older sister, he tends to keep a low profile and stays out of the public eye. He was most recently photographed at Milan Fashion Week in February 2023.

Connor has also been photographed with his dad over the years.

He made a rare appearance with Cruise in London in October 2019. They were photographed walking toward a private helicopter, with People reporting that Cruise showed his son “aviation basics.”

The father-son duo were photographed together again in October 2021 , this time in San Francisco. They attended the San Francisco Giants vs. Los Angeles Dodgers playoff game at Oracle Park.

Connor briefly pursued a career as an actor and starred in two movies, 2008’s “Seven Pounds” and 2012’s “Red Dawn.” He has also performed as a DJ in the past, including at his 21st birthday.

Today, Connor isn’t very active on social media, but has posted in the past about his hobby, deep-sea fishing .

Sunday Rose Kidman-Urban, 15

Kidman and Urban welcomed their daughter, Sunday Rose, on July 7, 2008.

As parents, Kidman and Urban have been protective of their daughters and seldom share their faces on social media. For Sunday’s 11th birthday in July 2019, Kidman shared a photo of her daughters from the back in front of the clock at Musee d’Orsay museum.

Despite not showing their faces publicly, Kidman and Urban have shared plenty of sweet sentiments about their daughters during interviews over the years.

Kidman opened up to Glamour UK in November 2020 about how her daughters were handling periods of isolation during lockdown in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. 

“For a 12-year-old, it’s about not being able to access friends easily — that’s a whole thing which every parent will be going through,” Kidman explained. “And then, there’s a 9-year-old, who’s socially forming. One of the hardest things is just watching them pine and yearn for their friends. I pine and yearn for my friends too.”

The “Somebody Like You” singer also opened up to TODAY’s Dylan Dreyer in September 2021 about whether his daughters were leaning toward following in the footsteps of their mom or dad more . 

Urban said it was “a bit of both” at the time, adding, “More directing than acting, which would be kind of good.”

Though their kids are still young, both Sunday and Faith made their film debut in 2019 in “The Angry Birds Movie 2.” Sunday voiced the character Lily, a yellow chick, while Faith voiced Beatrice, a purple baby bird.

Faith Margaret Kidman-Urban, 13

Kidman and Urban welcomed their daughter, Faith Margaret, on Dec. 28, 2010.

The actor has given brief glimpses of her daughters over the years in posts on social media.

In May 2019, Kidman shared a photo hugging her daughters , though only the backs of their head were visible. In January 2021, she posted a throwback video with both of her daughters as they enjoyed time near Australia’s Uluru rock formation.

When Urban appeared on TODAY back in August 2015, he shared some of his daughters’ musical abilities when asked if they played any instruments yet.

“Sunday and Faith, they have a few instruments they like to play,” he explained. “A little bit of piano and Faith, she’s got a little pink guitar that she likes to play as well. Bongos, maracas, tambourine, triangle — she’s just getting started.”

Like other celebrity parents, Kidman’s daughters help to keep her humble.

“The great equalizer is showing the Emmys to Sunny and Faith,” Kidman told TODAY in October 2017. “They don’t want them. It’s so funny. It’s such a kid thing. Sunday was like, ‘Mama, I know you said we could put in our shelf but it won’t fit. We have enough things on the shelf.’”

Kidman also opened up about how she was raising her daughters to be outspoken and strong women, saying she would lead by example instead. 

“So much is stepping aside and letting them become who they are,” said Kidman. “I don’t know if I’m teaching that as much as giving them their voices. I let them negotiate so they get a sense of who they are and what they can achieve and accomplish.”

Francesca Gariano is a New York City-based freelance journalist reporting on culture, entertainment, beauty, lifestyle and wellness. She is a freelance contributor to TODAY.com, where she covers pop culture and breaking news.

Tom Cruise poses with his and Nicole Kidman’s two kids Connor and Bella in ultra rare photo

 tom and nicole kidman, who were married from 1990 to 2001, adopted both bella and connor amid their fertility struggles.

Tom Cruise  shared an incredibly rare moment with his children, Connor and Bella , at a hockey game this past December, captured in a joyful photo that has recently resurfaced online. 

The picture, posted by former NFL star Derrick Brooks, shows the iconic actor enjoying a night out with his family, a rare glimpse into their private life.

Derrick, visibly thrilled by the encounter, shared his excitement on Instagram: “Good Evening, Wow, look who stopped by my office before our [Tampa Bay Lightning] game tonight! @tomcruise. I was a little star struck but played it cool and He said he was too!” 

In the snapshot, Tom stands proudly with Derrick, sporting a broad smile, while Connor gives a cheerful thumbs up beside them. Bella peeks out charmingly among the group, adding a sweet touch to the family outing.

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Tom and Nicole Kidman, who were married from 1990 to 2001, adopted both Bella and Connor amid their fertility struggles. 

Bella was welcomed into the family in 1992 and Connor followed in 1995. While Nicole and Tom's marriage ended over two decades ago, it's evident that Tom maintains a strong bond with their children, both of whom were raised in the Church of Scientology, a path also followed by their father.

Nicole, now 56, has occasionally spoken about her relationship with Bella and Connor, emphasizing the unconditional love a parent holds for their children, regardless of the paths they choose. 

In a candid interview with Who in 2018, Nicole expressed her philosophy of tolerance and open-heartedness: “I am an example of that tolerance and that’s what I believe – that no matter what your child does, the child has love and the child has to know there is available love and I’m open here.”

Despite the complexities of their family dynamics, with Bella and Connor choosing to call Nicole by her first name rather than 'mom', the actress has continually shown support and love for her eldest children. 

Bella now lives a creative life, often sharing her artwork and snippets of her life on social media, and is married to Max Parker since 2015. Connor, on the other hand, has carved out a niche for himself with his passion for fishing and his entrepreneurial venture, Connor’s Meatshack.

Tom, at 61, continues to share his love for adventure and public outings with Connor, the two having been spotted together as recently as July 2023 in New York City. 

These moments highlight the enduring connection between the father and his son, regardless of the public eye often focused on their family.

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Nicole Kidman’s Family Guide: Meet Her Children With Keith Urban and Tom Cruise

Nicole Kidman ’s greatest role isn’t on the big or small screen. Instead, it’s being the best mom possible to her four children.

“I just always wanted a child,” Nicole, 56, told Vogue Australia in December 2017. “I think from a very early age, I wanted a child. I knew that I was going to have a child and that it didn’t matter [how], I actually didn’t know if I was ever going to give birth to a child. So that was the least of it for me. And what I did first was adopt.”

In 1993, the Big Little Lies actress became a mom for the first time when she and her first husband Tom Cruise adopted their daughter, Bella. A few years later, the pair adopted son Connor into their family.

After the couple divorced in 2001, Kidman went on to find love with country singer and fellow Australian Keith Urban . The pair married in 2016 and welcomed daughters Sunday and Faith.

Related: Tom Cruise’s Dating History: A Look Back at His A-List Romances

“If it were the choice between my family and Keith, and my career, I wouldn’t even bat an eyelid,” she told The Australia Women’s Weekly in June 2014. “The most important things to me are the love of our relationship and my children. At this stage of my life, and with time being so precious, the joy I get from us as a family outweighs any joy in any other area of my life, by far.”

Keep scrolling to learn more about the members of Kidman’s family:

Bella Kidman Cruise, 31

Tom, 61, and Nicole adopted daughter Bella shortly after her birth in December 1992.

“From the minute Tom and I were married, I wanted to have babies,” Nicole told Vanity Fair in 2007. “And we lost a baby early on, so that was really very traumatic. And that’s when we would adopt [our daughter] Bella.”

While she was raised outside of the spotlight, Bella graduated from West London’s Delmar Academy of Make-up and Hair, before transitioning to a career in fashion.

Although Bella has an active Instagram , followers shouldn’t expect her to share family moments. Instead, it’s primarily dedicated to her art.

“Her go-to medium was pen and paper for most of her life,” her website states . “However, she is now venturing into other formats and mediums. Including digital. Which has been a bit of a game changer in her opinion. We hope you dig it.”

Connor Cruise, 29

Nicole and Tom, who wed in 1990, adopted their second child just after his birth in January 1995. In 2008, Connor got a glimpse of the Hollywood spotlight when he starred alongside Will Smith in the drama Seven Pounds . As a teenager, he briefly explored DJ gigs and released a single before making Florida his home.

Although Nicole and Tom divorced six years after their wedding, the actress expressed gratitude for the relationship and the family they created. “I got married really fast and really young,” she told Who Magazine in 2012. “But I don’t regret that because it got me Bella and Connor and I did have a fantastic marriage for a long period.”

According to People , Connor currently resides in the Sunshine State where he fishes and focuses on his barbecuing business, Connor’s Meatshack. “Connor has a pretty simple life in Clearwater,” a source told the publication. “He lives in his own home in a Scientology community. His life is deep-sea fishing. He has a lot of friends and seems very well-liked.”

Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, 15

Named in honor of the Australian patron of the arts, Sunday Reed, Sunday was born in July 2008 and spent much of her childhood with parents Nicole and Keith, 56, in Tennessee. “My daughters are Nashvillians! They have a southern drawl,” Nicole told People in 2016. “They have some Aussie. They have an unusual mix. They’re hybrids.”

Nicole has dropped hints that Sunday is interested in following in mom’s footsteps. In addition to showing an interest in directing, she’s also participated in theater.

“My daughter just got cast in her school play,” Nicole told E! News in January 2017. “So, that’s been the main priority, learning lines with her.”

Related: Celebrities Who Secretly Welcomed Children

And for those who wanted a season 3 of Big Little Lies , Sunday may be responsible for making it possible.

“She has a very good understanding of things and life, so she was hand-held through it,” Nicole revealed to Vogue Australia in January 2024. “She was like, ‘No. There’s no more discussion. The third series has to happen … I’m sick of the talk. Sick of circling it. Just get it done.’”

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Faith Margaret Kidman Urban, 13

In December 2010, Nicole and Keith surprised fans when they welcomed Faith via gestational surrogate.

It wasn’t until April 2024, however, when Faith and her older sister made their red carpet debut at the AFI Life Achievement Award Gala, where their mom was the evening’s honoree.

In an interview with Today , Nicole expressed hopes that she was raising her daughters to be outspoken and strong. “So much is stepping aside and letting them become who they are,” she explained. “I don’t know if I’m teaching that as much as giving them their voices. I let them negotiate so they get a sense of who they are and what they can achieve and accomplish.”

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Nicole Kidman's 4 Children: All About Bella, Connor, Sunday and Faith

Nicole Kidman shares two children, Bella and Connor, with ex Tom Cruise, and two daughters, Sunday and Faith, with husband Keith Urban

Nicole Kidman is the proud mother of four kids.

The Big Little Lies star shares two children, Bella and Connor, with ex-husband Tom Cruise . She also has two daughters, Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret, with her longtime love Keith Urban , to whom she's been married for nearly two decades.

Kidman became a first-time mother in 1993, when she and her then-husband Cruise adopted their daughter, Bella. A few years later, the pair welcomed son Connor into their family. Though Kidman and Cruise split in 2001, she told Elle in 2008 that the former couple's kids were raised "amidst a lot of love."

"They are generous, kind and hardworking," Kidman later said of her two older children. "And these are traits that I love to see in my children ."

After splitting from Cruise, the Being the Ricardos actress went on to marry Urban on June 25, 2006. Two years later, they welcomed their first daughter, Sunday Rose, followed by her younger sister, Faith Margaret, in 2010.

Kidman, who has been open about her fertility struggles, told Marie Claire Australia in 2021 that she always wanted a big family. "I would've loved 10 kids," she said. "I love mothering, I love kids: They're quirky, funny and unfiltered. And then you get to see them grow and send them on their way."

Kidman said that her daughters are part of her support system while talking to PEOPLE for the magazine's 50th anniversary in April 2024.

"I have my sister, mother, nieces, nephews, daughters. I'm raising a soon-to-be 16-year-old and a 13-year-old, who are divine. They're just lovely people ," she said.

From everything she's said about being a mother to her sweetest moments with her children, here's what to know about Nicole Kidman 's four kids: Bella, Connor, Sunday and Faith.

Bella Kidman Cruise , 31

Kidman and Cruise adopted daughter Isabella Jane shortly after her birth in Miami on Dec. 22, 1992.

"From the minute Tom and I were married, I wanted to have babies ," Kidman told Vanity Fair in 2007. "And we lost a baby early on, so that was really very traumatic. And that's when we would adopt [our daughter] Bella."

Though she grew up with her father in Beverly Hills, Isabella – who goes by the nickname Bella – has stayed mostly out of the spotlight. She graduated from West London's Delmar Academy of Make-up and Hair, before transitioning to a career in fashion.

The burgeoning designer got her start working for Holmes and Yang, the fashion line of Cruise's ex-wife, Katie Holmes . She started her own line , BKC (a.k.a Bella Kidman Cruise), in 2018, selling t-shirts adorned with her own drawings.

"Bella has been an artist her entire life. Her go-to medium is marker on paper with her inspiration for her artwork drawn largely from friends, fashion, and music," a statement on her line's site reads .

In 2015, she married British I.T. consultant Max Parker , and though neither of her famous parents attended the nuptials, Cruise reportedly helped pay for the event, while a Kidman source told PEOPLE that she was " very happy for Bella ."

While Bella tends to keep a low profile, she does maintain an active Instagram presence , regularly posting photos of her art along with the occasional selfie. In March 2023, she even debuted a new hairstyle on the app, showing off her newly dark brunette shag haircut and bangs.

In December 2023, former NFL player Derrick Brooks shared a photo on Instagram of himself posing with Bella, Connor and Cruise at a Tampa Bay Lightning hockey game — the actor's first public outing with his two older children in nearly 15 years.

"Good Evening, Wow, look who stopped by my office before our @tblightning game tonight! @tomcruise. I was a little star struck but played it cool and He said he was too!" Brooks wrote in his caption.

Connor Cruise , 29

Kidman and Cruise adopted their second child, son Connor, just after his birth in Florida on Jan. 17, 1995. Though her marriage to Cruise ended six years later, the actress has expressed her gratitude for the relationship, as it brought her her two older children.

"I got married really fast and really young," Kidman said in 2012. "But I don't regret that because it got me Bella and Connor and I did have a fantastic marriage for a long period."

Connor grew up in Los Angeles, and got his first real taste of the spotlight in 2008, when he acted alongside Will Smith in the drama Seven Pounds . Though he also had a role in the 2012 action film Red Dawn , he switched to music as a teen, releasing his debut single in 2013 and landing DJ gigs around the country.

Connor is also an avid deep-sea fisherman, a passion he attributes to his travels with his parents growing up. "We used to go fishing a lot when I was a little kid," he told PEOPLE in 2016. "I was blessed to travel the world as a young kid and now I'm traveling the world working."

The 29-year-old now resides in Florida and dedicates much of his time to fishing, as a source told PEOPLE in 2018. " Connor has a pretty simple life in Clearwater ," the insider said. "He lives in his own home in a Scientology community. His life is deep-sea fishing. He has a lot of friends and seems very well-liked."

In addition to his personal Instagram account — where he occasionally posts snaps of his impressive catches — he also runs a separate account dedicated to his barbecuing business, Connor's Meatshack .

Most recently, Connor shared a photo from a golf outing in April 2023. In the snap , he can be seen giving a thumbs up to the camera as he hits the course with a friend. "🏌️‍♂️⛳️," he captioned the image.

Sunday Rose Kidman Urban , 15

Emma McIntyre/Getty

Kidman and Urban welcomed daughter Sunday Rose on July 7, 2008, in Nashville. According to PEOPLE, Kidman's father first suggested the name Sunday in honor of the Australian patron of the arts, Sunday Reed. The couple, who claim Sunday as their "favorite day," were clearly on board.

When Sunday was young, the family relocated to Tennessee. In addition to picking up her parents' Australian lingo, Sunday adopted a bit of a Southern accent.

"My daughters are Nashvillians! They have a southern drawl," Kidman told PEOPLE in 2016. "They have some Aussie. They have an unusual mix. They're hybrids."

Her Aussie accent isn't the only way she's following in her mom and dad's footsteps — Sunday has had a passion for music since she was a little girl.

"She sings incessantly," Kidman said in 2010 of her then-2-year-old-daughter. "She has a repertoire of about 30 songs: 'The ABC Song,' 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Traffic Light,' 'So Long, Farewell.' "

It also seems like Sunday wants to follow her mother into the filmmaking industry. In a 2018 interview for TIME 100, Kidman shared that Sunday was already thinking of pursuing a career in the entertainment industry.

"I'm raising a little girl that's showing an interest in directing right now, " she said. "I want her to have a path for that."

At the 2017 Palm Springs International Film Festival, Kidman told E! News that Sunday also does some acting: "My daughter just got cast in her school play," she said. "So, that's been the main priority, learning lines with her."

Sunday and Faith made their red carpet debut in April 2024 at the AFI Life Achievement Award Gala, where their mom was the evening's honoree. "They're very, very supportive and incredibly loving ," Kidman told PEOPLE at the star-studded Los Angeles event.

Faith Margaret Kidman Urban , 13

Kidman and Urban surprised fans when they announced that they had welcomed daughter Faith Margaret via gestational surrogate on Dec. 28, 2010, in Nashville.

Like her sister, Faith's name has a sweet meaning. Despite their fertility struggles, Kidman and Urban " never gave up faith they'd have another child together," a friend of the couple told PEOPLE after her birth. As for her middle name, "Margaret" comes from Kidman's grandmother.

Juggling two young daughters with Kidman and Urban's busy careers isn't easy, though the actress told PEOPLE in 2019 that their family always comes first.

"At this stage in our lives, it's what works for the family and what works for our own joy," she said of avoiding jobs that mean too much time away from their daughters.

Kidman and Urban have done their best to keep their daughters' lives private, though both Faith and Sunday have occasionally made public appearances over the years. They were extras in their mom's HBO show Big Little Lies , and voiced baby birds in the film Angry Birds 2 . The girls even became close with the children of Kidman's Big Little Lies costars, as she explained to PEOPLE.

"They've grown up with those kids because I had them on-set around Monterey, and I'm like, 'Playdates, playdates!' " she said.

The pandemic brought on new challenges for Kidman's two younger children. Speaking to Glamour U.K. in November 2020, she explained that Faith and Sunday were " working through the emotions " of social distancing.

"One of the hardest things is just watching them pine and yearn for their friends," she added.

Earlier that year, Kidman spoke to Marie Claire Australia about how her husband was outnumbered and had to retreat from the "female-heavy" house on occasion.

" We're definitely female-heavy ! But as the girls say, 'The dog's a boy!' " she joked, adding that her husband finds solace in one of his shared hobbies with Faith.

"Oh, and he Googles cars — I'll know when he's stressed 'cause he's Googling cars," she said. "I couldn't care less what car I'm driving; you can pick me up in any old thing. But Keith and Faith love cars."

Though Kidman rarely posts her children on social media, she did share a sweet tribute for Faith's 11th birthday in December 2021. "Happy birthday our darling Faith. You are loved beyond measure," she captioned a photo of her daughter's birthday cake.

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