Nicole Kidman recently opened up about her ‘happy’ marriage to Tom Cruise which ended in 2001 despite her wishes.
Long considered to have one of the most solid marriages in Hollywood, fans were floored when Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise announced their divorce in 2001.
But no-one was more shocked than Nicole, who admitted their heartbreaking split after 10 years of marriage came without warning.
“I thought our life together was perfect,” she previously told DuJour magazine.
“It took me a very long time to heal. It was a shock to my system.”
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman pictured in 1999 at the Venice Film Festival
Indeed, last night Nicole lifted the lid on the marriage, insisting they’d been ‘happy’ while working on their last project together, the film Eyes Wide Shut.
But on February 4, 2001 Tom announced their separation to the world, and would cryptically go on to say, “Nicole knows why”.
But according to Nicole, she had no idea.
“This divorce was not her decision,” her rep said in a statement to the Daily Mail at the time.
“Tom made the move. Nicole is in a state of shock.”
According to friends, Tom – who reportedly cast a 22 year old Nicole as his love interest in Days of Thunder after being mesmerised by her in Dead Calm – returned to their family home and blindsided his wife by demanding a divorce.
Tom and Nicole were one of the biggest couples in Hollywood
Divorce papers at the time said Nicole begged him to reconsider, stating how she, “protested [Cruise’s] intention to dissolve their marriage and urged him not to leave but to enter marriage counselling with her, or take other steps to address whatever problems may have existed in their marriage…
“Tom said his decision was final and he departed the parties’ home.”
Tom claimed their marriage had broken down in December 2000, but Nicole disputed his timeline, insisting they had celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary with friends on December 24 and had still been intimate, resulting in a pregnancy that she tragically lost.
“I had a miscarriage at the end of my marriage,” Nicole told Marie Claire, having adopted daughter Isabella in 1993 followed by son Connor in 1995 with Tom.
Opening up about their fertility struggles, Nicole, now 53, revealed their attempts to start a family had been marred in grief from the beginning after she suffered an “incredibly traumatic” ectopic pregnancy at the start of their marriage.
Tom and Nicole adopted daughter Bella and son Connor (Image: Getty Images)
In response to Nicole’s divorce papers, Tom’s publicist Pat Kingsley told the Daily Mail: “Life moves on and Tom is getting on with his own future.”
Finally, after seven months of legal wrangling, their divorce was finalised with both sharing custody of the children.
However, as Bella and Connor grew older, they chose to live full-time with their Scientologist dad in Los Angeles, with Nicole revealing they’d even stopped calling her ‘mum’.
“My kids don’t call me mommy, they don’t even call me mom,” she told GMTV in 2007.
Isabella and her brother Connor Cruise chose to live with their dad (Image: Splash)
“They call me Nicole, which I hate and tell them off for it.”
Bella did hit the headlines back in 2015 with her low key wedding to Max Parker that was so secret even her parents weren’t invited to the bash.
Bella and Max tied the knot in a Scientology wedding at the Dorchester Hotel in London.
However, Bella was more than happy to clear up any rumours of a feud despite her not inviting Nicole to her wedding day.
Nicole now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with country singer Keith Urban and their daughters Sunday Rose, 12, and nine-year-old Faith Margaret.
Tom married third wife Katie Holmes in 2006 before they split in 2012. He was previously married to actress Mimi Rogers between 1987 and 1990.
