How Nicole Kidman Navigated Her First Divorce From Tom Cruise Before Keith Urban Split

Kidman had connected with the action star when they filmed 1990's Days of Thunder following his split from first wife Mimi Rogers.

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

After falling "madly, passionately in love," she continued, they tied the knot in December of that year. Over the next decade, Kidman and Cruise remained costars in work—starring in Far and Away as well as Eyes Wide Shut—and in life, adopting daughter Bella Cruise, 32, and son Connor Cruise, 30. And while the Rabbit Hole star 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 they 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]," court papers obtained by ABC News that May read. "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."

Kidman "protested [Cruise's] intention to dissolve their marriage and urged him not to leave but to enter marriage counseling with her, or take other steps to address whatever problems may have existed in their marriage," the documents continued, per the outlet. But Cruise "said his decision was final and he departed the parties' home."

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 miscarriage or his much-talked-about faith in Scientology.

Whatever the reason, Kidman acknowledged it wasn’t easy to move on. "It took me a very long time to heal," she told DeJour. "It was a shock to my system."

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 before their divorce six years later—Kidman didn’t give up on love and ended up meeting Urban at the G'Day USA gala in Los Angeles in 2005.

"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.

TMZ was first to report news of Kidman and Urban's split.

(E! and NBC News are both part of the NBCUniversal family).