What the Nicole Kidman–Tom Cruise Divorce Tells Us About the Keith Urban Split
Earlier this week, TMZ and People broke the news that Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are divorcing after 19 years of marriage. While Kidman was the one to officially file for divorce in Nashville on Tuesday, sources connected to her insisted to the tabloids that she is “shocked” by the split and tried everything to save her marriage to the country singer. “Nicole wanted to save their marriage and believed that she could, but it seems he’s already moved on,” a source told People. “It’s devastating to her. She’s shocked.”
Another source told TMZ that Kidman believes Urban is seeing someone else, which is also shocking to her. “All the signs point to the fact Keith is with another woman,” the source said. “Let’s just say, Nicole doesn’t dispute that, but she’s still shocked over it.”
If this narrative sounds even slightly familiar to you, you may be remembering Kidman’s last divorce, from Tom Cruise, in 2001. Cruise filed for divorce in February of that year, just after the couple’s tenth wedding anniversary, and sources told People that Kidman was “surprised by the timing of the announcement.” It “came much sooner than expected,” an anonymous friend of the actress said.
A couple of months later, Kidman’s attorneys insisted in her response to Cruise’s petition that she did not see the split coming and that she’d wanted to remain married. “On Sunday, February 4, 2001, petitioner told respondent that he no longer wanted to live with her and that he wanted a divorce,” Kidman’s filing stated. “This came as a shock to respondent. On December 24, 2000, 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, respondent became pregnant by petitioner but lost the baby through miscarriage.”
Damn. (Kidman later revealed in a 2007 interview with Marie Claire that she also had an ectopic pregnancy at the beginning of her marriage to Cruise. The two ultimately adopted two children, Bella and Connor.) The filing continued, “Respondent protested petitioner’s intention to dissolve their marriage and urged him not to leave but to enter marriage counseling with her or to take other steps to address whatever problems may have existed in their marriage relationship. Petitioner said his decision was final, and he departed the parties’ home.”
Cruise disputed this version of events at the time but did not provide any details. In his filing, his attorneys stated, somewhat ominously, that Kidman “has always known exactly why the parties are divorcing.” He later told Barbara Walters in an interview that Kidman’s version of events did not make sense to him. “Anyone who’s been in a relationship knows that’s not how it goes down,” he said, “and I think that it’s something that is between us.”
We still don’t know exactly what caused the breakup between Kidman and Cruise, but we can assume Kidman was happy when the divorce was finalized (and she was free to move on from the Church of Scientology). The iconic paparazzi photos of her leaving an attorney’s office in 2001 seem to suggest as much, anyway — though Kidman has said they were taken out of context.
In an interview last year with British GQ, Kidman claimed the photos — in which it appears she is celebrating her divorce settlement, rumored to be around $100 million, from Cruise — were actually taken on the set of a film. “That was not me,” she said. “That was from a film. That wasn’t real life. I know that image!” No one has been able to figure out which film she was referencing, though.
Both Kidman and Cruise officially moved on from their marriage in 2006: Cruise married Katie Holmes, and Kidman married Urban. In a 2012 interview with DuJour, Kidman repeated her assertion that the end of her marriage to Cruise was a shock. “It took me a very long time to heal,” she said. “It was a shock to my system. We were in a bubble, just the two of us. We became very dependent on one another.”
Kidman has always spoken positively about her marriage to Urban, and things seemed to be going well as of last year. In an interview with Vogue Australia, she said of her relationship, “I’m so lucky that I found it. It’s such an unstable industry and he’s my solace. Every day we get up in the morning and we go for a walk — and we hold hands. We love holding hands!” Urban also credited Kidman with sticking by him and saving his life after she accepted an AFI Life Achievement Award last spring. (Urban went to rehab just four months into their marriage after Kidman staged an intervention.)
And so now comes the shock: Sources connected to Kidman have once again been flooding People with quotes about just how surprised she is that her second marriage is coming to an end. “Nicole’s hurt and feels betrayed,” said one. “She’s shocked.” Another added, “Keith has not been honest.”
What, exactly, Kidman’s camp is alluding to with these statements remains to be seen, though fans are already pointing to Urban’s friendly relationship with his 25-year-old tour mate Maggie Baugh. Perhaps a shocking confirmation of betrayal is forthcoming in the next issue of People. In any case, if history repeats itself, we won’t get much in the way of specifics for at least a few more years, and we can probably expect Urban’s camp to dispute all the shock and awe. For Kidman’s part, she’s already been photographed on her first post-announcement walk in public, though it’s decidedly more low-key than that other famous walk.
My hope now is that Kidman’s next romantic relationship is free of surprises.
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