Published: 14:39 BST, 13 August 2026 | Updated: 15:58 BST, 13 August 2026
Nicole Kidman has revealed she was warned that marrying her first husband Tom Cruise could have a deleterious impact on her career.
She was 23 when she exchanged vows with Cruise in 1990, the year she achieved her Hollywood breakthrough acting alongside him in Days of Thunder.
At that point, he was 28 and already one of the most recognizable movie stars in the world, having led the cast of such pictures as Top Gun, Risky Business, Born on the Fourth of July, The Color of Money and Rain Man.
Kidman, 59, was told her own professional life would be eclipsed by her association with a celebrity who was so much more famous than she was.
'I’m like: "I don’t care. I’m in love. I want to be married." And then I was his "wife" and they were like: "See, we told you,"' she told British Vogue.
'I’m like: "So what? I wasn’t meant to marry the man I love? Of course I’ll throw my career away. I don’t care,"' said Kidman, who separated from her second husband Keith Urban last summer after a marriage of 19 years.
The Daily Mail has contacted a representative for Cruise for comment.
Nicole Kidman has revealed she was warned that marrying her first husband Tom Cruise could have a deleterious impact on her career; pictured 1997
She was 23 when she exchanged vows with Cruise in 1990, the year she achieved her Hollywood breakthrough acting alongside him in Days of Thunder; pictured 1999
Kidman, 59, was told her own professional life would be eclipsed by her association with a celebrity who was so much more famous than she was; pictured last month
Kidman and Cruise adopted two children called Bella, 33, and Connor, 31, over the course of their decade-long marriage before they divorced in 2001.
Cruise was Kidman's first husband, but had himself been previously married to actress Mimi Rogers, who reportedly brought him into the fold of Scientology.
After her divorce from Cruise, Rogers memorably told Playboy he 'thought he had to be celibate to maintain the purity of his instrument,' while her own 'instrument' required 'tuning.'
Kidman has now offered rare insights into her own failed marriage to Cruise, saying with an incredulous whistle: 'Yeah, I got married so young. Suddenly I was 22, 23 years old and I had this huge movie star husband.'