Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban shocked the celebrity world when their split was revealed on Tuesday after two decades of marriage.
The Oscar winner, 58, and the musician, 57, are already living separately, with an insider saying Nicole was left ‘blindsided’ by the split.
While the pair share two kids Sunday Rose, 17, and Faith Margaret, 14, Nicole also has two children with her ex Tom Cruise.
Nicola has also dated the likes of Lenny Kravitz, Marcus Graham and Tom Burlinson.
So as Nicole’s divorce gets underway, what have her exes said about her before?
Taking it back to the beginning in the 1980s Nicole was in a relationship with her Windrider co-star Tom Burlinson.
Now 69, Tom was 11 years older than her at the time they dated. They were together for around three years, with him describing it as her first relationship with a man as an adult.
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban shocked the celebrity world when their split was revealed on Tuesday after two decades of marriage
While the pair share two kids Sunday Rose, 17, and Faith Margaret, 14, Nicole also has two children with her ex Tom Cruise (seen together)
After their breakup Tom spoke positively about her, telling the Sydney Morning Herald in 2020: ‘Nicole Kidman and I made a movie, Windrider, in 1986 and dated for three years.
‘I was 11 years older and it was her first relationship with a man as an adult.’
‘We had happy times, but she had her own path to take in life. One thing that has been written about us, which is incorrect, is that I asked her to marry me and she said no. I’ve only proposed once in my life.’
Equally as gushing about her was her next ex Marcus Graham, though he did admit he was heartbroken when they split.
She dated the Australian actor in the late ’80s until she met Cruise.
In 2023 Marcus said: ‘I was devastated and heartbroken, but that’s the way it goes, isn’t it?’
He added: ‘I don’t have anything bad to say about Nicole.’
Her first marriage was of course to Cruise, which is to this day one of the most controversial relationships in Hollywood history due to his involvement in Scientology.
The pair first met on the set of Days of Thunder in 1989 and were married the following year in a Christmas Eve wedding. She was just 23 at the time, and Cruise was 28.
Taking it back to the beginning in the 1980s Nicole was in a relationship with her Windrider co-star Tom Burlinson
Equally as gushing about her was her next ex Marcus Graham, though he did admit he was heartbroken when they split
They continued to collaborate with each other on film projects after tying the knot, co-starring in 1992’s Far and Away and then again in Stanley Kubrick’s final film, the erotic thriller Eyes Wide Shut.
They adopted two children together, daughter Isabella Rose in 1992 and son Connor in 1995, and to outsiders, they were the perfect couple.
However, Cruise stunned the world in 2001 when he filed for divorce not long after their tenth wedding anniversary, citing ‘irreconcilable differences’.
While neither Cruise or Kidman have ever revealed the real reason behind their split, fans have long speculated that Cruise’s involvement in Scientology may have played a role in the former couple failing to see eye to eye.
Reflecting on the marriage in a 2012 interview with DuJour magazine, Nicole said, ‘I thought our life together was perfect.’
She continued, ‘It was a shock to my system. It took me a very long time to heal.’
As for Cruise, he cryptically told Vanity Fair magazine in 2013, ‘She knows why, and I know why, [we divorced].’
‘She’s the mother of my children, and I wish her well.
‘Things happen in life, and you do everything you can, and in every possible way, and there’s a point at which you just sometimes have to face the brutal reality.’
He has also previously called her a ‘great actress’.
After her high profile relationship with Cruise, Kidman kept her next romance on the down low.
The actress quietly dated musician Lenny Kravitz for a brief period of time around 2003, and while their relationship was brief, it was intense enough to lead to a secret engagement.
The actress quietly dated musician Lenny Kravitz for a brief period of time around 2003
Despite the engagement fizzling out, Kidman has expressed love for Kravitz over the years and went on to work with his daughter Zoë in the HBO drama Big Little Lies.
Lenny has previously said of her: ‘Nicole is amazing. Zoë and she hadn’t spent time together since she was younger, since Nicole and I were together, so that was great.’
Nicole’s relationship with Tom remains her highest-profile romance.
Nicole and Tom adopted Isabella, 32, and Connor, 30, in the early 90s but following their split in 2001 the two children reportedly sided with their father, and have not been publicly seen with their mother since 2007.
The adopted children reportedly remained ‘loyal to their father’, meaning they were raised in the controversial church of Scientology.
She has previously spoken about the real reason she wanted babies with Tom after suffering a heartbreaking loss.
She said in 2007: ‘From the minute Tom and I were married, I wanted to have babies.
‘And we lost a baby early on, so that was really very traumatic. And that’s when we would adopt [our daughter] Bella.’
Speaking about her relationship with actor Tom she said in 2012: ‘I got married really fast and really young.
‘But I don’t regret that because it got me Bella and Connor and I did have a fantastic marriage for a long period.’
The Big Little Lies star has refused to talk about the religion or her family ties in recent years but is said to have been absent from many of her children’s life events including Bella’s wedding at the Dorchester hotel in London in September 2015, despite her living in the city and starring in the West End at the same time.
In 2018, she made a rare statement on the topic, telling Who: ‘They are adults. They are able to make their own decisions. They have made choices to be Scientologists and as a mother, it’s my job to love them.
‘And I am an example of that tolerance and that’s what I believe – that no matter what your child does, the child has love and the child has to know there is available love and I’m open here.’
She added: ‘I have to protect those relationships. I know 150 per cent that I would give up my life for my children because it’s what my purpose is.
Nicole hasn’t been pictured publicly with her eldest two children since 2007, and she was also reportedly left ‘devastated’ after the pair didn’t attend her father’s funeral in 2014.
But despite a reported rift between Nicole and her eldest children – something Connor and Bella deny – the actress has previously spoken of her ‘unconditional’ love for the kids, in light of their ‘choices to be Scientologists’.
The A-list couple adopted Connor and Isabella in the early 1990s after Nicole suffered an ectopic pregnancy and a miscarriage – and was told as a result she might find it hard to conceive.
She previously opened up in an interview with Tatler about her fertility issues with Cruise, and how she felt a ‘yearning’ for children.
In 2018 when accepting her Best Actress Golden Globe, the Nine Perfect Strangers star thanked her biological daughters and second husband Keith Urban – but didn’t mention Connor or Bella.
Nicole shares Connor, 30, and Bella, 32, with her ex-husband, with the pair adopting them in the early nineties. Tom and Nicole pictured with their children in 1996
While Nicole and Keith share daughters Sunday Rose, 17, and Faith Margaret, 14 – seen second and third left in 2024
Scientology appears to be the root of much of the divide in the family, with Tom allegedly banning Nicole from Connor’s 2019 wedding to another high-ranking scientologist.
‘Tom is behind this and what he wants is as good as law,’ a source told RadarOnline.com at the time. ‘Tom made the call and Connor followed.’
Connor, a former DJ who is now into deep sea fishing, ‘worships the ground his father walks on’ the source added, claiming he would never disobey the actor.
In 2010, Nicole said she wished her kids lived with her and three years prior, in 2007, Nicole said her adopted children had even stopped calling her ‘Mum’, sparking rumours their relationship was strained.
‘My kids don’t call me mommy, they don’t even call me mom. They call me Nicole, which I hate and tell them off for it,’ she remarked.
Those rumours were fuelled further later on, when she spoke publicly about the kids – who are both committed Scientologists along with their father – choosing to live with Cruise.
The actress has previously insisted she does keep in contact with Connor and Bella, despite them choosing to live with Cruise when they split.
‘They live with Tom, which was their choice,’ she said. ‘I’d love them to live with us, but what can you do?’
She added to E! News: ‘Everybody has their own path and when they find their path it’s such a relief as a parent.’
The last time she was photographed with Connor in public was at the Annual Kids’ Choice Awards in Los Angeles in 2007, when he was just 13.
However, the family deny that relations are strained.
In 2014, Nicole told Woman’s Weekly that her eldest are ‘generous, kind and hardworking. And these are traits that I love to see in my children’.
At the time she also described her film Lion – where she plays an adoptive mother – as a ‘love letter’ to her children.
In the same year, Connor also said: ‘I don’t care what people say. I know that me and mum are solid. I love her a lot. My family means everything,’ he said.
Speaking to the Daily Mail in 2016, Bella had also said: ‘Of course [we talk], they’re my parents,’ she says. ‘Anyone who says otherwise is full of s**t.
In 2012 she told New Idea: ‘I love mom. [Nicole’s] my mom. She’s great. I see her sometimes and I speak to her,’ adding ‘we’re a very close family. I love all of our family.’
After dating Lenny, Kidman would go on to marry the man she would call ‘the love of my life’, country singer Keith.
The lovebirds wed back in 2006 during a traditional Catholic ceremony at the Cardinal Cerretti Chapel in her hometown of Sydney and later welcomed two beautiful daughters together.
In 2022, the singer insisted that he and his wife are ‘as normal as you get’ on an episode of Jessica Rowe’s podcast series The Big Talk Show.
He also spoke about the very first time they met at the G’Day LA event in 2005, saying he thought the stunning Hollywood star was ‘well out of his league.’
‘We’re just a couple who work things out, go through things together, life, and support each other the best way we can and try and raise our family,’ Keith explained.
‘Underneath it all, we’re as normal as you can get I reckon,’ he claimed, before reflecting he was ‘not in a great place’ when they first met.
‘She seemed well out of my league at that time in my life,’ he said.
‘I was not in a great place at my life, struggling with a lot of things, not in a million years would someone like that see anything in me… The fact that became what it is meant to be is astounding.’
He also sweetly described his wife as ‘ethereal, angelic, other worldly, very mystical and then completely down to earth at the same time and very funny.’
Last year, Urban reflected on how he nearly destroyed his marriage, not long after they walked down the aisle.
‘We got married in 2006, and barely four months into our marriage, the addictions that I had done really nothing about blew our marriage to smithereens,’ he said while presenting at the AFI Life Achievement Award Gala Tribute to Kidman last year.
Urban revealed that he was struggling with addiction when he first met Nicole and with her support he managed to eventually pull through.
‘Four months into a marriage, and I’m in rehab for three months with no idea what was going to happen to us.
‘Nic pushed through every negative voice – I’m sure even some of her own – and she chose love.
‘And here we are tonight 18 years later. Her capacity to love is like no one I’ve ever met,’ he concluded.
Sadly, the couple’s split was revealed on Monday, with sources confirming the news to DailyMail.com.
‘Keith never sees Nicole, either she is filming or he is on tour,’ the source said.
‘There was a lot of love between the two and they might not divorce, but there is a world that they both live where neither of them are in it.’
‘Keith and Nicole have been together for decades and there is a world which they can reconcile, but the way their pairing is now, it is not a couple.’
The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban for further comment and has yet to hear back.
