Nicole Kidman.Photo:Dan Steinberg/BEI/Shutterstock
Dan Steinberg/BEI/Shutterstock
AsNicole Kidman’s career reached one of its highest peaks, the actress was experiencing one of her most personal lows.
The star, 56, won her first Oscar in 2003 for playing Virginia Woolf inThe Hours, just a year after her first nomination forMoulin Rouge!. But behind her bright smile and glamorous Jean-Paul Gaultier gown hid a private struggle; Kidman had recently finalized her divorce fromTom Cruiseafter 11 years of marriage.
“I was struggling with things in my personal life, yet my professional life was going so well,” she told author Dave Karger in his new book50 Oscar Nights(on sale Jan. 23). “ That’s what happens, right?”
On stage, Kidman briefly broke down before composing herself (“Russell Crowe said don’t cry when you get up there and now I’m crying”), and was played off before she was able to finish her speech. Afterwards, she felt the urge to go home.
“I’m not a big party girl, so I was going to skip the Vanity Fair party, and everyone was like, ‘You’ve got to go. You’ve got to walk through the party carrying your Academy Award,’" she recalls in the book. “I said, ‘That just feels like gloating, and it doesn’t feel humble.’ Like, what? You can’t walk through carrying the award! That feels really inappropriate. They’re like, ‘That’s what you do.’”
Ultimately, she did to the storied bash, at least for a little while, with her engraved Oscar in hand: “So I literally walked in, carried it around, was completely overwhelmed, emotional, shaking, and I didn’t enjoy it. I was almost apologetic, which is so stupid. I wish I could have enjoyed it more,” she says.
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Afterwards, in the quiet of her hotel room, Kidman was confronted with the urge to find love again.
“I went home and ended up ordering takeout and eating it on the floor of the Beverly Hills Hotel," she says. “I sat on the floor of the hotel eating French fries and a burger with my family and went to bed. That’s when it hit me. I went, I need to find my love; I need a love in my life. Because this is supposed to be when you go, ‘This is ours.’”
The Oscar evening ended with a whimper. “I went to bed alone; I was in bed before midnight. If I ever won again, I’m telling you, I’d be out for 24 hours.”
Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman.John Shearer/Getty
John Shearer/Getty
Two years later, Kidman began dating country star Keith Urban after the pair met at a G’Day USA gala in Los Angeles.
The couple married in 2006 in Sydney and today share daughtersSunday Rose, 14, andFaith Margaret, 12. (Kidman is also mother to daughterIsabella, 30, and sonConnor, 28, with Cruise.) In July, Kidman and Urbranmarked their 17th wedding anniversary.
50 Oscar Nights.
“I met him later in life and it’s been the best thing that’s ever happened to me,“she told Gayle Kingin 2022. “That man is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
source: people.com
