Nicole Kidman Says Divorcing Tom Cruise Forced Her to ”Grow Up”

Nicole Kidman is speaking out about her decade-long marriage to Tom Cruise.Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise tied the knot in 1990 after starring in the film Days of Thunder together, at the beginning of what would become a very successful career.

In an essay written for New York magazine’s women and power series, she reveals. “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.”

During their time together, the pair adopted two children, Isabella, now 25, and son Connor, now 23.

It wasn’t till they divorced in 2001, that Kidman felt she had to face new and different struggles in her career, especially as a woman. “I would work, but I was still very much cocooned,” she explains. “So when I came out of it at 32, 33, it’s almost like I had to grow up.”

Not that she didn’t face her own #MeToo moments from time to time. Kidman says, “Of course I’ve had #MeToo moments — since I was little! But do I want to expose them in an article? No. Do they come out in my work? Absolutely.”

For her, she would rather direct her emotions into a “well of experience and emotion tapped into” and displayed in her work as an actress. “I’m not just talking about sexual harassment. I’m talking about loss, death, the full array of life,” Kidman adds.

Since splitting from Cruise she says it “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.”

Nicole and the country music star wed in 2006, and have since welcomed daughters Sunday, 10, and Faith, 7.