Nicole Kidman is opening up about her whirlwind marriage to Tom Cruise — and revealing she was warned from the very beginning that saying “I do” to one of Hollywood’s biggest stars could come at a major cost.
The Oscar-winning actress, now 59, was barely into her 20s when she fell head over heels for Cruise, now 64, after meeting him on the set of the 1990 racing blockbuster Days of Thunder.
Their romance moved fast. The pair married in December 1990, when Kidman was just 23, and suddenly the young Australian actress found herself married to one of the most famous men on the planet.
In a candid new interview with British Vogue, Kidman admitted people around her warned that becoming “Tom Cruise’s wife” could overshadow her own rising career.
“Yeah, I got married so young,” Kidman recalled. “Suddenly I was 22, 23 years old and I had this huge movie star husband.”
But at the time, she said none of that mattered.
“We just fell madly in love, and it was that simple,” she explained.
Kidman said people bluntly told her, “OK, well this is really going to affect your career.”
Her response? She didn’t care.
“I’m in love. I want to be married,” Kidman remembered thinking.
As her husband’s fame exploded, Kidman said she quickly became known in Hollywood simply as Cruise’s “wife” — exactly what she had been warned might happen.
But even then, she insisted she had no regrets.
“So what? I wasn’t meant to marry the man I love?” Kidman said. “Of course I’ll throw my career away. I don’t care.”
Kidman and Cruise’s relationship quickly became one of Hollywood’s most closely watched marriages.
The couple went on to appear together in Far and Away in 1992 and Stanley Kubrick’s provocative Eyes Wide Shut in 1999, all while their private lives became constant tabloid fodder.
Kidman now believes those years helped shape the way she handles fame.
Despite describing herself as naturally shy, the actress said decades of scrutiny have made intense public attention feel strangely normal.
“Strangely enough, I feel comfortable,” she said. “Is that weird? That’s so weird.”
Kidman explained that because she entered Cruise’s superstar world at such a young age, she can barely remember what life was like before cameras and headlines followed her everywhere.
“Because of who I married at such a young age, I was thrust into it since I was 22,” she said. “[My life has been] more time like that than not.”
After more than a decade together, the Hollywood power couple stunned fans in February 2001 when they announced their separation.
Cruise subsequently filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.
Kidman later showed that she could still joke about the painful split.
During a now-famous appearance on David Letterman’s Late Show shortly after the breakup, she took a playful swipe at Cruise’s height.
“Well, I can wear heels now!” Kidman quipped.
Kidman eventually found love again with country music star Keith Urban. The pair married in 2006 and had two daughters together before finalizing their divorce in January 2026.
More than 25 years after her marriage to Cruise ended, Kidman’s latest comments offer a revealing glimpse into just how dramatically her life changed when she became one half of Hollywood’s most famous couples — and why the warnings she received at 23 weren’t enough to stop her from following her heart.
