Nicole Kidman Shuts Down "Sexist" Question About Tom Cruise

Nicole Kidman does not want to talk about Tom Cruise, thank you very much.

The Oscar-winning actress recently sat down with The Guardian to discuss her performance in Being the Ricardos. The film follows a week in the lives of Lucille Ball (Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem), touching on issues of marriage, motherhood, and gender along the way. 

“Well that’s just it,” Kidman told reporter Eva Wiseman during the interview. “That’s my whole life. I love that you can describe the film, and then it correlates to my life. Isn’t that fantastic?”

The actress felt drawn to the dynamics between Ball and Arnaz portrayed in the movie—particularly the not-so-glamorous aspects of their marriage.

“You can’t make people behave how you want them to, and sometimes you’re going to fall in love with someone who isn’t going to be the person you spend the rest of your life with,” Kidman said. “And I think that’s all very relatable. You may have kids with them. You may not, but they were very much in love.”

Wiseman then asked if Kidman was alluding to her ex-husband, Tom Cruise. “Oh, my God, no, no. Absolutely not. No. I mean, that’s, honestly, so long ago that that isn’t in this equation. So no,” Kidman replied.

Then she got angry.

“And I would ask not to be pigeonholed that way, either,” she said. “It feels to me almost sexist, because I’m not sure anyone would say that to a man. And at some point, you go, ‘Give me my life. In its own right.’”

It’s more than a fair point, seeing as Kidman and Cruise divorced in 2000—and they both have led full, entirely separate lives since then. On her end, Kidman won an Oscar for The Hours in 2003, married Keith Urban in 2006, won an Emmy (and Golden Globe) for Big Little Lies in 2017, and has starred in countless other films and TV shows that continue to earn her rave reviews.

Yet she still gets asked questions about her ex-husband? Given everything she’s accomplished in her life and career, it’s certainly easy to understand her frustration.