The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Nicole Kidman

Considering she's a timeless beauty with dozens of beloved screen credits — not to mention, a seemingly tabloid-free public image — what's not to love about Nicole Kidman? The beloved actor, who was actually born in Hawaii, but holds citizenship in both the U.S. and Australia, has risen to heights reserved for the upper echelon of Hollywood names. With Academy Awards, Golden Globes and Emmys wins to her name, Kidman has a trophy case to prove she's more than made it in the biz. She may have turned 50 in 2018, but Kidman's career hasn't slowed down, as she has continued to appear in both critically-acclaimed and audience-beloved movie and TV titles.

Kidman's personal life may seem picture-perfect at first glance, too. After all, is there a Hollywood couple that seems more in love than Kidman and Keith Urban? Is there another actor who seems able to defy time like Kidman? But the Big Little Lies star has also overcome a substantial amount of adversity to ascend to the status she's achieved. 

Learn more about the many challenges Kidman has persevered through over the course of her life on her way to stardom and domestic bliss. 

At 17 years old, Nicole Kidman's star was already on the rise. But her life took a dramatic turn when her mother Janelle was diagnosed with breast cancer, leaving Kidman in a position to have to "help nurse" her mother through the scary ordeal, according to The Guardian. "I think that imprinted on me for the rest of my life," Kidman told USA TODAY in 2004, adding, "Seeing her go through that pain and also seeing her strength and her grace gave me my commitment to this cause for the rest of my life." Kidman has dedicated her time in her years as a successful actress to advocating and donating money to advance breast cancer awareness and research, including her teaming up with Stanford University's Women Cancer Program in 2009 to raise funds for the program's projects.

In July 2019, tabloids reported that Kidman allegedly rushed to Australia to escort her ailing mother to the hospital following a medical emergency, with Janelle having previously been rushed to the hospital in 2018. Yet, Janelle appeared to be on the mend in an Instagram post that Kidman shared in March 2020, showing her sitting with her mother in a smiling photo. "Happy Birthday to my darling Mumma," she captioned the loving snapshot. "I love you so much. This photo is so US!"

Nicole Kidman experienced another loss on her road towards building a family in 2001, when she experienced a miscarriage during her marriage to Tom Cruise. "The loss of a miscarriage is not talked about enough," she told Tatler in 2018. "That's massive grief to certain women. There's an enormous amount of pain and an enormous amount of joy on the other side of it. The flipside of going through so much yearning and pain to get there is the feeling of 'Ahhhh!' when you have the child.'"

Kidman finally experienced that joy for herself in 2008, when she gave birth to daughter Sunday Rose, her first child with her second husband Keith Urban, with the couple later welcoming daughter Faith in 2010 with the help of a surrogate. Kidman told Tatler that, as a mom who took the routes of adoption and surrogacy to expand her family, she believes that society places undue value on biological motherhood. "I mean — whatever, right?" she said. "Whether you're an adoptive mother, whether you're a foster mother, whether you're a biological mother -– it's the emotion of attaching to a child and helping to guide them and rear them [that is important]."

In the years since her divorce from Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman has largely stayed hush-hush about the details of that relationship and the reasons behind their split. Speaking to New York Magazine's The Cut in 2018, Kidman finally opened up a bit, alluding to the possibly-skewed power dynamic she had with Cruise, and the reasons she entered the relationship beyond just romance.

Kidman acknowledged that "being married to Tom Cruise at 22 is something I'm always reluctant to talk about, because I'm married now to (Urban) who is my great love, and it almost feels disrespectful." But she went on to talk about the pros and cons she experienced of getting married at a young age to a Hollywood superstar. "I got married very young, but it definitely wasn't power for me — it was protection," she said. "I married for love, but being married to an extremely powerful man kept me from being sexually harassed." 

Kidman also shared that "of course I've had #MeToo moments — since I was little! But do I want to expose them in an article? No." Having worked with disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein in the past, Kidman did distinguish that she had not been a victim of his Hollywood harassment. "I always knew Harvey had a lot of anger," she told The Guardian in 2018. "But I would never have thought he was capable of the rest. My parts with Harvey were quite limited."

Nicole Kidman's biochemist father, Antony Kidman, died suddenly in 2014 at age 75 after suffering a fall. Nicole recalled her painful grieving process in a 2019 Tatler interview, remembering how her daughter Faith tried to comfort her. "My three-year-old said, 'But you're not going to be sad like this tomorrow, are you?'" she said, adding, "That's when you realize (that) you have to be OK. Because they need to know that they're safe, that their mother isn't going to fall apart ... Inside? I was beyond shattered. But I had to rally."

Nicole's mother Janelle was dealt with "terrible grief" following Antony's death, Nicole told Red in 2017. "They were together for 50 years. It's awful to see, so sad. She's in Australia, which is why we all go back four times a year. In your forties you are grappling with all those things: trying to be the mother and the daughter. It's a lot."

When Nicole appeared in the play Photograph 51 on London's West End in 2015, her performance as a biochemist was inspired by her late father, and she was often brought to tears during her curtain calls by her memories of him. "Every performance was for him," she told Red. "Literally every time I was about to go on I would speak to him. I had this photo of him when he was young in a lab coat with his curly hair."

Nicole Kidman has opened up about her mental health on numerous occasions, sharing the times in her life she's experienced depression. Kidman told Who in 2012 (via Yahoo) that her divorce from Tom Cruise left her in a dark state. "I married (Tom) really fast and really young, but I don't regret that because it got me (Isabella) and Connor, and I did have a fantastic marriage for a long period," she said, adding, "Then when it didn't work out, I had to really dig deep and find my way through depression, but I have no regrets about all of it. It was all a part of growing up."

Kidman has also struggled with difficult feelings as a result of her film projects. In addition to the difficulties of playing abuse survivor Celeste in Big Little Lies, Kidman also recalled that her role in 2018's Destroyer, in which she played a troubled detective, left her in a precarious mental state. "I was very, deeply depressed," she told Variety of the role in 2018, adding, "It was the point where my husband was like, 'When the hell is this going to end?'" 

Kidman, who wore prosthetics on her face to alter her appearance for her Destroyer role, remembered that Urban was disturbed when he first saw a version of the film. "He was weirded out," Kidman said, adding, "Wouldn't you be weirded out if you were married to one person, and they show up looking like that?"