Nicole Kidman: Being married to Tom Cruise protected me from harassment

Nicole Kidman’s marriage to Tom Cruise in the ’90s stopped her from “being sexually harassed” as a young actress in Hollywood.

The 51-year-old actress — who is now married to Keith Urban — tied the knot with Cruise in 1990 and adopted two children, Isabella, now 25, and Connor, now 23. They split in 2001.

And while Kidman is “reluctant to talk about” her marriage to the Mission: Impossible star because it feels “disrespectful” now that she’s married to Urban, she does admit Cruise’s status helped to protect her while she was a young star in Hollywood.

“Being married to Tom Cruise at 22 is something I’m always reluctant to talk about, because I’m married now to the man who is my great love [Keith Urban], and it almost feels disrespectful,” she told New York magazine.

“That said, I got married very young, but it definitely wasn’t power for me — it was protection.

“I married for love, but being married to an extremely powerful man kept me from being sexually harassed. I would work, but I was still very much cocooned. So when I came out of it at 32, 33, it’s almost like I had to grow up.”

But despite her protection, the Big Little Lies star — who has two children, Sunday, 10, and Faith, 7, with Urban — says she still experienced her “share of #MeToo moments”.

She added: “But do I want to expose them in an article? No. Do they come out in my work? Absolutely. I’m open and raw. I want to have my well of experience and emotion tapped into — used, and I’m not just talking about sexual harassment.

“I’m talking about loss, death, the full array of life. But it has to be by the right people so it’s not abused again.”

With additional reporting by Bang Showbiz.

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