Nicole Kidman Says She Married Tom Cruise To Protect Herself From Sexual Harassment

We don't often hear about Nicole Kidman's marriage to Tom Cruise anymore. The two separated in 2001, and perhaps the most significant relic that's endured of their relationship is that viral photo of Kidman purportedly leaving their divorce finalisation. There's a reason she doesn't talk about the ten-year relationship that much (she says it almost feels "disrespectful" to her current husband, Keith Urban) but she got candid in an interview for the October 15, 2018 issue of New York Magazine about her marriage to the Mission Impossible star and the unfortunate but familiar reality of being a woman in Hollywood.

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

Kidman declined to get specific about any personal #MeToo moments in her life, a movement for survivors of sexual harassment and assault that kicked off in Hollywood a year ago when the New York Times reported the first of many allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein, but she explained that they "come out in [her] work."

"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," she continued. "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."

Read the full interview on The Cut.