Nicole Kidman is reflecting about how much her marriage to Tom Cruise has been covered in the media.

The 54-year-old Big Little Lies star stated in Harper’s Bazaar’s October 2021 cover story that she isn’t bothered by the public’s interest with her previous marriage.

“I was young. I think I offered it up?” Nicole laughed about how she handled the media’s criticism. She married Tom on Christmas Eve 1990, and they had been dating for almost ten years.

Nicole continued: “Maybe I’ve gotten a bit more trepidatious, but I’m always trying to be as open as possible. I just prefer to live in the world that way…

“I’m wary at times, and I’ve been hurt, but at the same time I much prefer a warm approach rather than a prickly shut-down approach. My husband, Keith, says that when he met me, he said, ‘How’s your heart?’ And I apparently responded, ‘Open.'”

Last year, the Emmy winner said she and Cruise were “happily married” when filming the 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut, in which they played a married couple dealing with adultery. She was asked if working on the film caused her any “negative feelings” about her relationship with Cruise during the interview.

“That fits the narrative that people came up with, but I definitely didn’t see it like that,” she responded.

In October 2020, the Oscar winner addressed The New York Times about joining up with her then-husband on the Stanley Kubrick project, saying, “We were happily married through that. We would go go-kart racing after those scenes. We’d rent out a place and go racing at three in the morning. I don’t know what else to say. Maybe I don’t have the ability to look back and dissect it. Or I’m not willing to.”

Throughout the 1990s, Nicole and Tom were the most powerful couple in Hollywood. They were constantly promoting each other’s careers, appeared on red carpets, and were just stunning. On Christmas Eve 2000, they repeated their wedding vows at Tom’s house in Telluride, Colorado.

The actress of Big Little Lies also discussed parenthood throughout the conversation. Bella, 28, and Connor, 26, are her children with Tom, while Sunday, 13, and Faith, ten, are her children with husband Keith Urban.

“[I do] not have a big social life. I have my work, I have my family, I have my own inner landscape that I explore. I choose that probably more than I choose to be out partying,” she said.

Since their divorce, the former couple has maintained the privacy of their children. Kidman explained why she seldom speaks about her two adopted children in a 2018 interview with Who magazine, claiming she is very protective of their privacy.

“I’m very private about all that. I have to protect all those relationships,” Kidman told the publication. “I know 150 per cent that I would give up my life for my children because it’s what my purpose is.”

The actress added, “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.”

In a 2018 piece for New York Magazine, Kidman expressed her reluctance to acknowledge her relationship with the Top Gun star.

She remarked at the time, “It almost feels disrespectful [to Keith]. That said, I got married very young, but it definitely wasn’t power for me — it was protection. … When I came out of [the marriage] at 32, 33, it’s almost like I had to grow up.”

In February 2001, Cruise filed for divorce, claiming “irreconcilable differences” as the basis for their breakup. Six months later, they were declared legally single.

When Tom called it quits on their marriage, Nicole was distraught. “Our life together was perfect. It took me a very long time to heal. It was a shock to my system. That was a great relationship. I think it ran its course. I was really damaged and not sure whether [love and marriage] was ever going to happen again to me.”