Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise were married for more than a decade

There was once a time where Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise were one of Hollywood’s major power couples. Married for 11 years, the couple met as two of the industry’s bright young stars and would collaborate three times over the course of their relationship.

When the couple first met, Tom was known as the Top Gun hot shot, making his name in films like Rain Man and The Color of Money, Meanwhile, Nicole was just breaking out in Hollywood having starred in a number of Australian movies.

Nicole Kidman’s relationship to adopted children with Tom Cruise
The star shares her two oldest children with Tom Cruise. Nicole was married to the actor for 11 years, adopting and raising Bella and Connor together.

Their relationship would go on to cause intrigue over the years, from their intense working relationship and fertility issues, to their two adopted children and eventual divorce in 2001.

But what’s the full story? Here’s everything we know.

Meeting on Days of Thunder

Nicole and Tom met while filming Days of Thunder in 1990, where the Top Gun actor immediately made an impression on 23-year-old Nicole.

“I remember being so nervous and seeing Tom Cruise drive up in a Porsche,” Nicole recalled on The Jess Cagle Show in 2016. “He got out of the car and walked through the door, and I was like, ‘Ah.’ My jaw dropped.”

© Jeff Kravitz

Their private wedding ceremony

Tom made such an impression that they married less than a year after first meeting in a private ceremony with only family members attending in December 1990.

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Fertility issues

Early on in their widely-publicized marriage, the couple’s fertility issues hit the spotlight when Vanity Fair reported that Nicole lost a baby when she was 23. Nicole would later correct this: “So it’s huge news, and it didn’t happen. I had a miscarriage at the end of my marriage, but I had an ectopic pregnancy at the beginning of my marriage. It was incredibly traumatic for me.”

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Adopting their kids

The couple had two kids together while married, adopting Isabella shortly after she was born in 1992, before going on to adopt Connor in 1995 not long after he was born. Tom would say on fatherhood: “I was scared to death. Scared to death!” He joked to Vanity Fair that he “didn’t know what the hell I was doing” when it came to changing diapers.

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Eyes Wide Shut

Nicole and Tom worked together for their third and final time in Stanley Kubrick’s controversial final film Eyes Wide Shut. The couple started filming in 1996, and production took 400 days to film, making it the longest continuous film shoot according to Guinness World Records.

Nicole maintains that the couple remained happy while filming, although their living quarters were certainly unusual: “We had two kids and were living in a trailer on the lot primarily, making spaghetti because Stanley liked to eat with us sometimes,” she told The New York Times in 2020. “We were working with the greatest filmmaker and learning about our lives and enjoying our lives on set.”

© Matt Turner

High profile divorce

Tom filed for divorce in 2001 citing irreconcilable differences, which was a “major shock” to Nicole. While she was spotted leaving her attorney’s office and celebrating her divorce from the star, she would say years later that the divorce was hard.

“He was huge; still is. To me, he was just Tom, but to everybody else, he is huge. But he was lovely to me. And I loved him. I still love him,” she told Ladies’ Home Journal in 2006.

How they moved on

After going their separate ways, the couple moved on with different partners. Tom would date Penélope Cruz, before marrying Katie Holmes with whom he’d have a daughter called Suri. Katie and Tom also divorced in 2012. Nicole dated and was briefly engaged to Lenny Kravitz in 2003, before eventually settling down with country star Keith Urban who she has been with ever since 2006.

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The couple’s relationship with their grown up kids

Reports have suggested that Nicole may have a tricky relationship with Connor and Isabella, who were raised as Scientologists by Tom and still practice the religion. Tom is often spotted with the duo, who are all grown up.

However, the Oscar winning actress has insisted that she tries to maintain her incredibly private relationship with her elder children

She told The Sun: “Motherhood is about the journey. There are going to be incredible peaks and valleys, whether you are an adopting mother or a birth mother. What a child needs is love. They have made choices to be Scientologists. It’s our job as a parent to always offer unconditional love.”