How Nicole Kidman Handled Tom Cruise Divorce Before Keith Urban Split

Nicole Kidman Files for Divorce From Keith Urban Amid Separation

And if her followers were shocked by their since-finalized divorce, well, Kidman admits it’s not how she envisioned her future either.

"But at the same time I’m like, 'OK, I didn’t expect this. I had a different view of what my life was going to be, but this is what it is now,” the Practical Magic 2 actress—who shares daughters Sunday Rose, 18, and Faith, 15, with Urban—recently told British Vogue. "You make all these plans and you have all these ideas of what it’s all going to be like and then it’s… not. You have to adjust. You adapt. The future, it’s completely unknown to me right now."

Though she finds this "strange," Kidman would rather not spend the hours dwelling on the past.

"There was a point where I was very fearful and deeply vulnerable," the Big Little Lies alum added, "which is exposing. And then at the same time [I’m] going, 'Well, I can either really not confront it and just curl up, or I can just go forward with an enormous amount of hope.'"

"We just fell madly in love and it was that simple," the Moulin Rouge! lead recalled to British Vogue. "I remember people saying to me, ‘OK, well this is really going to affect your career.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t care. I’m in love. I want to be married.'"

They tied the knot in December of that year, and the media cast her in a new role.

"I was reeling with Tom. I would have gone to the ends of the earth for him," the Babygirl star told DeJour in 2012. "I was so impulsive and naïve."

Though she and the Top Gun actor experienced heartache—including an ectopic pregnancy at the beginning of their marriage—she told the outlet she "thought our life together was perfect."

So fans were surprised when the pair announced their separation in February 2001 and Cruise filed for divorce days later. And according to Kidman's response, so was she.

"This came as a shock to [Kidman]," read court papers obtained by ABC News that May. "On Dec. 24 the parties had happily celebrated their 10th anniversary with a group of friends. During the balance of December and thereafter the parties were intimate; In fact [Kidman] became pregnant by [Cruise] but lost the baby through a miscarriage."

For his part, the Mission: Impossible star claimed in his filing they’d separated before their anniversary, per ABC News, and denied the divorce was a shock to Kidman—with his lawyer telling the outlet she "has always known exactly why the parties are divorcing."

Not that Cruise felt it was anyone else’s business.

"Anyone who’s been in a relationship knows that’s not how it goes down," the Jerry Maguire alum told Barbara Walters in 2002, "and I think that it’s something that is between us."

However, he insisted the divorce had nothing to do with the pregnancy or his much-talked-about faith in Scientology.

As Kidman navigated the divorce—which was finalized months later—she focused on her work, releasing Moulin Rouge! and The Others in 2001 as well as The Hours the following year.

"To be completely honest, I was running from my life at that time," she shared at the 2015 Women in the World summit. "I wasn’t able to handle the reality of my life. And as an actor, you have this wonderful thing where you can go and get lost in somebody else’s life and become somebody else for a period of time."

As the actress transformed into these characters, she noticed a transformation in herself too.

"I then sort of embraced my own life and I got myself together," she continued, "and it took me a number of years."

But after winning the Oscar in 2003 for her lead role in The Hours, Kidman realized she wanted more.

"That caused an epiphany, which was, 'Actually, this is not the answer,'" she added. "I was sitting in The Beverly Hills Hotel and it was all extraordinary and I was the loneliest I’d ever been."

Despite the heartbreak she experienced with Cruise—who then wed Katie Holmes in 2006, the two divorcing six years later—Kidman didn’t give up on love. She was briefly engaged to Lenny Kravitz before they split in 2004. Then in early 2005, Kidman met Urban at the G'Day USA gala in Los Angeles. Most recently, Kidman has sparked romance rumors with businessman Michael Reinstein.

"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," she told Harper's Bazaar in 2021. “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. My husband, Keith, says that when he met me, he said, ‘How’s your heart?’ And I apparently responded, 'Open.'"

To open up memories of Kidman and Urban's marriage, keep reading.