While accepting her Emmy Award for her performance in Big Little Lies, Nicole Kidman gave a passionate speech about the HBO miniseries. Kidman called domestic abuse "a complicated, insidious disease," referring to her character Celeste Wright's abusive relationship with her husband, Perry (Alexander Skarsgård). Kidman's speech was inspirational in many ways — but some people are still criticizing her for it.
The backlash isn't because of what Kidman said during her speech — instead, it's about what she didn't say. Namely, Kidman mentioned the two daughters she has with her husband Keith Urban, but she didn't mention her elder two children, whom she adopted with Tom Cruise, her ex-husband.
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"I am also a mother and a wife. I have two little girls, Sunny and Faith," Kidman said during her speech. "This is yours. I want my little girls to have this on their shelf and to look at it and go, 'Every time my mama didn't put me to bed, it's because of this. I got something!'"
Her speech captures the essence of her Big Little Lies character, too. Celeste struggled with wanting to return to her legal career, something Perry didn't want her to do. Kidman's message for her daughters is a sweet one, though some Twitter users wondered why she didn't mention her other two children, 24-year-old Isabella and 22-year-old Connor.
Shout out to Nicole Kidman's two adopted kids who didn't get a shout out in her speech. #Emmys
— Phoebe (@MILKWITHN0SUGAR) September 18, 2017
I know nothing about their situation, but I hate when Nicole Kidman fails to mention the kids she and Tom Cruise adopted.
— itsonlyzach (@itsonlyzach) September 18, 2017
Interesting that Nicole Kidman's 2 kids she adopted with Tom Cruise don't get a shout out
— Roland Scahill (@rolandscahill) September 18, 2017
It's not likely that Kidman was trying to exclude her other kids, though. They're already grown up, so talking about being a working mom and putting them to bed doesn't really make sense in the context of her speech. And she's praised the two of them at other times, including when she promoted Lion last year. Kidman played an adoptive mother in that movie, and she spoke about the personal meaning it had for her as a real-life adoptive mom.
As Vogue pointed out, Kidman reportedly has a complicated relationship with her elder children. Like Cruise, they are Scientologists, while Kidman isn't. Still, it's not up to us to comment on her relationship with her children — especially since it's unlikely she meant to slight them during her speech. We should be celebrating Kidman's victory and moving speech, not picking apart her personal life.
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