The Real Reason Nicole Kidman And Tom Cruise Broke Up

It was supposed to be a perfect match.
Tom and Nicole, two young celebrities at the height of international fame, captured the
world's attention with a very publicized marriage that produced heat both on-screen and off.
They became a star couple, and their union became a lightning rod for media attention.
They acted opposite each other in films like Eyes Wide Shut, Far and Away, and Days of
Thunder and were touted as a pair of sex symbols worthy of envy.
They had children, they had fame.
Seemingly, they had it all — and it all fell apart.
Here's a look at why the two called it quits after such a high-profile romance.
Auspicious start
The Tom and Nicole relationship started in 1989, where they connected through — where
else?
— Hollywood.
Kidman was a rising star, fresh from a string of Australian films and miniseries which had
won her increasing accolades and attention in her country.
It was during a viewing of the 1989 Australian film Dead Calm that Tom first set eyes on
Nicole and began putting things in motion to meet her in person.
Perhaps not coincidentally, at the time he was in the process of divorcing his first
wife, Mimi Rogers.
When they eventually did meet, Nicole fell hard for Tom.
She told Vanity Fair in 2002, "He basically swept me off my feet.
I fell madly, passionately in love.
And as happens when you fall in love, my whole plan in terms of what I wanted for my life
— I was like, 'Forget it.
This is it.'"
The two married in 1990, shortly after his divorce from Rogers was finalized.
Baby-making blues
As things were beginning, there seemed to be no sign of the future misgivings that would
tear the couple apart.
In their breaks from movie shoots, they did fun things like skydiving together, and Nicole's
enthusiasm for her husband, and starting a family, was evident.
She told Vanity Fair, "I was desperate to have a baby with him.
I didn't care if we were married."
They tried for children together, unsuccessfully, and chose instead to adopt two children over
the course of three years, Isabella and Connor.
They would raise the kids together up until their divorce in 2001.
Belief systems
In what should have seemed inevitable from the very beginning, fractures in the marriage
started to occur over a very specific ideological split — Tom was (and remains) a Scientologist,
and Nicole was not.
According to multiple sources, the biggest source of friction between Tom and Nicole
came from forces outside their marriage — Tom's church.
Leaders in Scientology were allegedly so concerned that Nicole was pulling Tom away, they began
to conspire to end the marriage.
The church's leaders were suspicious of Nicole from the start, since her father was a psychiatrist,
which is a specific field of study that Scientologists have long raged against.
"Here's the problem.
You don't know the history of psychiatry, I do."
Additionally, in May of 1991, Time magazine ran a scathing exposé on Scientology as their
cover story, calling it a "thriving cult of greed and power."
This article, coupled with her own personal misgivings with how Scientology was affecting
her life, reportedly encouraged Nicole to try and pull Tom away from the organization.
It was a game of tug-of-war that lasted until the end of the decade, but as their differences
became irreconcilable, Tom and Nicole announced their decision to divorce in 2001.
Culling the kids
Tom and Nicole's children, Connor and Bella, were just pre-teens when their parents split,
so at first, their parents shared custody.
But as Nicole's star rose and she took more demanding jobs, the kids spent more and more
time with their father, seeing their mother less and less.
"I try to respect them as little people, you know,
So I give them a voice and I listen to them, and I try and guide them because that's my
job as a mum."
They began to be home-schooled by Tom's sisters, with a Scientology-focused educational regimen,
and one summer went to a Scientology-focused summer camp instead of spending it with Nicole.
By 2005, they were effectively living with Tom full-time, and by choice.
For years, Nicole Kidman's relationship with her children remained estranged.
Isabella grew up and got married without inviting her mother, even though they were in the same
city at the time.
Meanwhile, neither child attended Kidman's father's funeral, and they even referred to
Katie Holmes as "Mom" when their father married her in 2006.
According to former Scientologist celeb Leah Remini, Bella said that she didn't have a
choice but to cut her mother out because she was a "Suppressive Person" in the eyes of
their church.
After a few years, though, Nicole finally began getting back into the loop of her kids'
lives.
She met her daughter's husband, nearly a year after the two were married.
And Connor said of his mother, "I don't care what people say.
I know that me and mum are solid.
I love her a lot.
My family means everything."
Nowadays, Nicole tends to talk a lot more kindly about her ex -- and perhaps her reunited
relationship with her kids has something to do with that.
"Tom really supported me and I'm so... so grateful to him for that."
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The Real Reason Nicole Kidman And Tom Cruise Broke Up

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