Nicole Kidman And Tom Cruise's Relationship (part #4)
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman seemed like a match made in heaven. How did it all go so wrong?
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.
The actress told Vanity Fair,
"My life collapsed.
People ran from me because suddenly it was 'Oh, my God!
It's over for her now!'"
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."
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 praised his former wife, saying,
"I love Nicole.
I've always loved her [...] That doesn't go away.
It will never go away."
Kidman appeared to feel the same way.
In an interview with Ladies Home Journal, she said that while the divorce was a huge
shock, she had nothing but love for her former husband.
Kidman told the outlet,
"To me, he was just Tom, but to everybody else, [he’s] huge.
But he was lovely to me and I loved him.
I still love him."
However, as the years went by, things slowly grew more unpleasant 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.