Nicole Kidman opens up on Tom Cruise marriage and reveals warning she ignored after falling ‘madly in love’

Nicole Kidman has offered a rare glimpse into her marriage to Tom Cruise, revealing falling in love with one of Hollywood’s biggest stars at a young age felt “completely natural” at the time.

The 59-year-old Oscar winner reflected on the high-profile relationship in a new cover interview with British Vogue, decades after she and Cruise tied the knot on Christmas Eve in 1990.

Kidman explained that being exposed to major red carpets, fashion shows and celebrity events from such a young age had made her feel “comfortable” navigating the spotlight.

“You have to remember, literally, because of who I married at such a young age, I was thrust into it since I was 22. (I have spent) more time like that than not. My memory of it not being that is quite blurry, because I was really young,” she said.

Reflecting on getting “married so young” to Cruise, Kidman said the enormous level of fame surrounding their relationship did not feel unusual to her at the time.

“Suddenly I was 22, 23 years old and I had this huge movie star husband. But it just seemed completely natural. We just fell madly in love and it was that simple.”

But Kidman revealed people around her had warned that marrying Cruise could come at a cost to her burgeoning acting career.

“I remember people saying to me, ‘OK, well this is really going to affect your career,’ ” she recalled.

“I’m like, ‘I don’t care. I’m in love. I want to be married.’ And then I was his ‘wife’ and they were like, ‘See, we told you.’ I’m like, ‘So what? I wasn’t meant to marry the man I love? Of course I’ll throw my career away. I don’t care.’ ”

Kidman and Cruise remained married for more than a decade before their divorce was finalised in August 2001.

The former Hollywood power couple, who adopted children Bella, now 33, and Connor, 31, first met while working together on the 1990 film Days of Thunder.

Their relationship also crossed over onto the big screen several more times, with the pair starring together in Ron Howard’s Far and Away in 1992 and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut in 1999.

Kidman has previously spoken about how young she was when she entered the marriage and the personal growth that followed its breakdown.

During a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, the Australian actress reflected on the period following her divorce and the time she spent on her own.

“I had a lot of time alone, which was really, really good, because I was a child, really, when I got married. And I needed to grow up,” she said.

Kidman later found love with Australian country music star Keith Urban, with the pair marrying in 2006.

Their marriage lasted 19 years before the couple announced their separation in September 2025. Kidman and Urban share two daughters, Sunday Rose, 18, and Faith Margaret, 15.

Kidman had previously been reluctant to publicly revisit her relationship with Cruise, explaining in a 2018 interview with New York Magazine that discussing her former husband while married to Urban did not feel right.

“Being married to Tom Cruise at 22 is something I’m always reluctant to talk about, because I’m married now to the man who is my great love, and it almost feels disrespectful,” she said at the time.

However, Kidman also reflected on the protection she felt came with being married to one of the most powerful stars in Hollywood

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

“I married for love, but being married to an extremely powerful man kept me from being sexually harassed. I would work, but I was still very much cocooned. So when I came out of it at 32, 33, it’s almost like I had to grow up.”