Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

  • How Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s romance began on a movie set and quickly led to a wedding.
  • Why the couple spent 11 years battling tabloids to protect their marriage and family from rumors.
  • What ultimately caused their high-profile marriage to unravel.

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s careers couldn’t have been much hotter in the 1990s. He was the star of blockbusters like Jerry Maguire and Mission: Impossible, and she was the headliner of hits such as Batman Forever and Practical Magic. Unsurprisingly, they were one of Hollywood’s most high-profile couples during this period, and they fiercely defended the happiness and legitimacy of their marriage for 11 years—until their tabloid-rattled relationship ultimately fell apart in a very public way.

In 1990, fresh off his divorce from actress Mimi Rogers, Cruise met Kidman on the set of the race-car drama Days of Thunder. While the movie flopped at the box office, the co-stars had real chemistry. “My first reaction to meeting Nic was pure lust … It was totally physical,” Cruise told Entertainment Weekly in 1995.

Meanwhile, Kidman told DuJour that she “fell madly, passionately in love” with her on-screen partner. “I was reeling with Tom,” she said. “I would have gone to the ends of the earth for him.”

On Christmas Eve that year, after a brief courtship, Cruise and Kidman married in Telluride, Colorado.

Throughout the 1990s, the couple frequently fought back against scrutiny from the media. “Every little step Nic takes is much bigger news because she’s with me,” Cruise told EW in 19965. “People judge her because of it. It adds a lot of pressure. I guess that’s the downside of being married to Tom Cruise.”

Cruise and Kidman filed multiple lawsuits against tabloids over false claims, winning retractions and apologies each time (and donating the settlements to charity).

In one 1998 case, a British tabloid alleged their marriage was a sham. “This is the final recourse against those who have printed vicious lies about me and my family, and I intend to protect my family,” Cruise said, according to CBS News.

Despite dealing with persistent press coverage, Cruise and Kidman built a life together, adopting two children, Isabella and Connor. They also appeared together on screen again in 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut.

By early 2001, however, their marriage unraveled. On February 5, Cruise and Kidman announced their separation after 11 years together, citing the difficulties involved with two acting careers and the amount of time spent apart while working.

Kidman later admitted she had believed “our life together was perfect” before the split, per People—and that the breakup came as “a shock to my system.”

When Vanity Fair asked Cruise in 2002 why he and Kidman divorced, he responded, “She knows why, and I know why.” He continued:

“She’s the mother of my children, and I wish her well. And I think that you just move on. And I don’t say that lightly. I don’t say that with anything. Things happen in life, and you do everything you can, and in every possible way, and there’s a point at which you just sometimes have to face the brutal reality.”

Both stars entered into high-profile marriages after the split. Cruise went on to marry (and later divorce) actress Katie Holmes, while Kidman is still together with country singer husband Keith Urban.

Today, Cruise doesn’t often speak about Kidman (though he recently called her “a great actress”), and Kidman isn’t willing to “look back and dissect” their marriage in public, as she told The New York Times.

Discover more about Tom Cruise’s legendary career and life after his 11-year marriage to Nicole Kidman in his full Biography.com profile.

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