Fourteen years after her divorce from Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman is finally breaking her silence. The Australian actress, who kept mum during their controversial separation in 2001, spoke at the Women in the World Summit (WIWS) in London last Friday, Oct. 9, US Magazine reports. She admits that she was at her "loneliest" during that phase in her life.
"To be completely honest, I was running away from my life at that time. I wasn't able to handle the reality of my life," she said. To escape her loneliness, the actress poured herself into her work. She added, "As an actor, the wonderful thing is you can become something else for a time. Out of that came work that was applauded so that was an interesting thing for me."
Two years after her divorce, Kidman won an elusive Oscar for her role in "The Hours" in 2003. Despite her success, the actress said she still felt empty and lonely. "That caused an epiphany - this is not the answer. I was sitting in the Beverly Hills Hotel with a gold statue and I was the loneliest I'd ever been. I was jolted out of the idea that 'this is gonna heal me,'" she recalled.
To heal, Kidman said that she paused from work and did a lot of reading and talking. Five years later, she met country superstar Keith Urban, her current husband. They got married in 2006.
"I wanted a partner and someone to share my life. I wanted more children. That's happened for me. It's not through just luck. I was open to it and willing to change and welcome the change; I got to have a child when I was 41 and then we had a surrogate."
Kidman and Cruise, during their 11-year marriage, have two adopted children, Isabella, 22, and Connor, 20. Kidman and Urban have two daughters, Sunday, 7, and Faith, 4.
For the award-winning actress, motherhood was definitely the turning point in her life. "That love is so perfect," she said. "Once you have that child you think: Ah, I'm willing to die for this person and that changes everything."
Kidman is currently in London for the stage play "Photograph 51," where she plays Rosalind Franklin, a DNA scientist. According to National Post, the actress wept upon reading the script.
"I believe in Rosalind being celebrated and I wanted to put her back in the conversation and dialogue beyond the scientific community," she said.
Taking a break from the play, she appeared at the WITW conference alongside Meryl Streep and Cara Delevingne. The event, now on its seventh year, highlights women around the globe "who are saving lives, enriching communities, and shattering glass ceilings."
