Nicole Kidman said her marriage to Tom Cruise prevented her from being harassed
In a column published in New York Magazine on Monday, Nicole Kidman discussed her marriage to Tom Cruise and how being married to him prevented her from being sexually harassed. "I married for love, but having married an extremely powerful man kept me protected from sexual harassment," she said.
"I always have a hard time talking about my marriage to Tom, because I am currently married to the love of my life, Keith Urban, and it makes me feel disrespectful," she wrote in the column, focused on women and power. "Having said that, I can tell you that I got married very young, at 22, and that did not give me power but protection."
Kidman and Cruise agreed in 1990, shortly after meeting on the set of Days of Thunder. The couple, who adopted Isabella and Connor while they were together, divorced in 2001.
"I used to work, but they always had me between cotton wool, and nothing ever happened to me. When the marriage ended, I was 32 or 33 years old and had already grown up," she said. "Of course I had moments similar to those revealed during the Mee Too campaign when I was young. But do I want to expose them in an article? No. Did they happen in my work? Absolutely."
"I want to take advantage of my experiences, use them, and I am not only talking about sexual harassment but about losses, deaths and everything that life brings. But I must do it with the right people, so that it does not feel like a new abuse."
The actress also said that despite her successful career, she still struggles to feel powerful in Hollywood. "I won an Oscar in 2003 and I didn't even realize the power that that meant. I don't know if it's low self-esteem, but I still have a hard time standing there and saying, 'I've earned this.' anyway, since it keeps me in a state of uncertainty and humility that makes me keep fighting and surprising me every time they summon me. "
