Ah, the ’90s! Matthew Perry was dating Julia Roberts (aka Chandler Bing and Vivian Ward), Bennifer 1.0 were going strong and Nicole Kidman had married Tom Cruise. The pair were Hollywood’s hottest couple from sharing their vows in 1990 before they shockingly split in 2001. All the while the couple were placed under intense media scrutiny. While both Kidman and Cruise are notoriously private about how their relationship ended, the actress has since reflected on how the tabloids played a part.
Speaking in a cover interview for Harper’s Bazaar, she questioned whether she was too honest about their partnership.
“I was young. I think I offered it up?” she said when asked about the scrutiny they faced in the ’90s and early noughts. “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.”
“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,” she continued. “My husband, Keith [Urban], says that when he met me, he said, ‘How’s your heart?’ And I apparently responded, ‘Open.'”
Kidman and Cruise share two children from their 11-year marriage, son Connor, 26, and daughter Isabella, 28. The two stars met on the set of Days of Thunder and married just six months after that. Their last film from 1999, Eyes Wide Shut, explored a married couple who were grappling with infidelity. Despite pressing questions in a 2020 interview from the New York Times, Kidman assured they were happily married.
“We would go go-kart racing after those scenes. We’d rent out a place and go racing at 3 in the morning,” she told the publication.
Kidman married Urban in 2006 and the couple have remained inseparable since.
