They made up one of the most revered couples in Hollywood and also one of the most enigmatic.
Now 20 years ago, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman announced their separation, a story surrounded by great secrecy in which Scientology played an important role.
The actors broke up and the two children they adopted, Isabella and Connor, chose to stay with their father.
Despite the two decades that have passed, the mystery around their relationship continues.
The actors met on the set
of Tony Scott's
Days of Thunder
.
They were married on December 24, 1990, with Dustin Hoffman as a witness, in a chapel in Telluride, Colorado, where the couple owned a cabin.
It was never known if she became a follower during those years of Scientology, where he is a prominent member.
During the 11 years they were together, they walked the red carpets around the world showing their cloying love with incessant kisses and caresses.
They embodied what seemed like a perfect couple until everything fell apart.
The official version is that their professional careers separated them.
Two years earlier, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise met on screen for a historical film, Master Kubrick's last work,
Eyes Wide Shut,
a grueling 400-day shoot that marked the end of their love story.
When Kubrick decided to film
Eyes Wide Shut he
looked for a couple of actors, if possible married.
He thought of Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin but ultimately settled on Cruise and Kidman.
For a decade the actors lavished praise on each other.
“Our marriage is nine years old now [in 1999] and we have passed the date of the fateful first seven years.
When you are also loved for your flaws, you are really safe.
I don't know what I would do without Tom.
We are so close that each one finishes the other's sentences.
We understand each other without speaking, “revealed Kidman.
"When I read
Jerry Maguire's
script
I cried over the last line, which said, 'You complete me.'
It's exactly how I feel about Nic, "added Cruise.
Despite these statements, some US media did not stop insinuating that their marriage was just a facade to hide Cruise's alleged homosexuality and boost Kidman's career.
The couple, fed up with these comments, went to court, where they won several lawsuits.
Cruise was at that time very attacked by his ex-wife, also the actress Mimi Rogers, who hinted that he was not very interested in sex.
The Kidman-Cruise couple's adoption of a girl, Isabella, and later a boy, Connor, didn't help end the innuendo.
His life abroad was idyllic.
Both of them scheduled their films according to the filming dates and locations so as not to be far from each other for more than two weeks.
Mission: Impossible 2
was shot, for example, in Australia because Nicole Kidman was supposed to work there too.
Otherwise, Tom Cruise was hopping on his private plane to meet his wife.
But they went from love to separation overnight.
She had to sign a confidentiality contract.
In 2001 the actress told host David Letterman about her divorce: "Well, now I can wear heels."
It wasn't until 2012 that he spoke more.
It was in
DuJour Magazine.
“I fell madly in love, passionately.
I would have gone to the ends of the earth for him, he explained.
He also remarked that, due to media pressure in general, and harassment from the paparazzi in particular, they were "in a bubble": "Just the two of us.
We became very dependent on each other. "
The breakup, as she herself confessed, "was a
shock
."
"It took me a long time to recover," he said.
In a revealing interview with
Tatler
magazine almost three years ago
,
the actress revealed for the first time the reasons why she and Cruise adopted Isabella and Connor.
In 1990, shortly after the wedding, she suffered a first miscarriage, and the nightmare repeated itself in 2001 during the divorce proceedings.
“There is not enough talk about the loss due to a miscarriage.
It is an immense pain for many women, ”she said.
Kidman is now the mother of two daughters alongside singer Keith Urban.
Cruise married actress Katie Holmes and divorced;
with her he had a daughter.
Now no relationship is known.
