Nicole Kidman reveals why she was warned off marrying Tom Cruise aged 23 in rare remarks on failed marriage... after Keith Urban divorce

Nicole Kidman has revealed she was warned that marrying her first husband Tom Cruise could damage her career.

She was 23 when she exchanged vows with Cruise in 1990, the year she achieved her Hollywood breakthrough acting alongside him in Days Of Thunder.

At that point, he was 28 and already one of the most recognizable movie stars in the world, having featured in Top Gun, Risky Business, Born On The Fourth Of July, The Color Of Money and Rain Man.

Kidman, now 59, was told her own professional life might be eclipsed by her association with a celebrity who was so much more famous than she was.

'I’m like: "I don’t care. I’m in love. I want to be married." And then I was his "wife" and they were like: "See, we told you,"' she told British Vogue.

'I’m like: "So what? I wasn’t meant to marry the man I love? Of course I’ll throw my career away. I don’t care,"' said Kidman, who separated from her second husband Keith Urban last summer after a marriage of 19 years.

The Daily Mail has contacted a representative for Cruise for comment. 

Kidman and Cruise adopted two children called Bella, 33, and Connor, 31, over the course of the decade they spent together before their divorce in 2001.

Cruise was Kidman's first husband, but had himself previously been married to  actress Mimi Rogers, who reportedly introduced him to Scientology.

After her divorce from Cruise, Rogers memorably told Playboy he 'thought he had to be celibate to maintain the purity of his instrument,' while her own 'instrument' required 'tuning'.

Kidman has now offered rare insights into her own failed marriage to Cruise, saying with an incredulous whistle: 'Yeah, I got married so young. Suddenly I was 22, 23 years old and I had this huge movie star husband.'

The Moulin Rouge! actress insisted that 'it just seemed completely natural,' adding that she and Cruise 'just fell madly in love and it was that simple,' though she recalled 'people saying to me: "OK, well this is really going to affect your career."'

Cruise and Kidman became one of the most high-octane Hollywood power couples of the 1990s, the instant center of attention on any red carpet they attended.

Onscreen, they co-starred in Ron Howard's 1992 western Far And Away and Stanley Kubrick's swan song, the 1999 erotic thriller Eyes Wide Shut.

Upon their divorce, Connor and Bella reportedly stayed with their father and, like him, remained in the Church of Scientology, to which Kidman does not belong.

They have rarely been seen with their mother since, although when Kidman married her subsequent husband Keith Urban in the Sydney suburbs in 2006, Bella served as one of her bridesmaids and Connor acted as an usher.

In 2018, Kidman remarked that she was 'very private about' her equation with Bella and Connor, while speaking to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

'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.'

At that time, Bella was said to be living in London with her husband, IT consultant Max Parker, while Connor was supposedly a resident of Clearwater, Florida, near his father's penthouse and the global headquarters of the Church of Scientology.

Neither of Bella's parents was reportedly present at her wedding in 2015, although Cruise was said to have bankrolled the ceremony. 

Kidman, meanwhile, is publicly close to the two daughters she welcomed into the world during her marriage to Urban – Sunday Rose, 18, and Faith Margaret, 15.

Sunday followed her parents' footsteps into the public eye when she was 16 years old by launching a career as a runway model, for which she was promptly heaped with mockery over her severe expression, 'stomping' gait and 'nepo baby' status. 

Kidman and Urban finalized their divorce this January, having separated early last summer after a marriage that lasted 19 years.

In the wake of the news, past clips resurfaced of Urban's cozy onstage antics with guitarist Maggie Baugh, 26, fueling romance rumors about them.

One video showed him pointing to Baugh as he sang: 'I was born to love you' in Las Vegas, while another was of him changing his lyric: 'Baby I'll be the fighter,' to: 'Maggie, I'll be your guitar player,' during a show in Chicago. 

Meanwhile, Kidman was glimpsed last month sunning herself on holiday in Italy with the dashing private equity mogul Michael Reinstein.

Days later, she was seen beaming in Los Angeles while sitting in a car with Reinstein, who appeared to have picked her up at the airport after a flight from New York.

A source claimed Urban was 'absolutely devastated' that Kidman had struck up a romance with a new man, according to the magazine New Idea.

He was alleged to have nursed 'hopes there might be a chance at reconciliation,' and was said to consequently be 'going through that feeling of deep loss all over again.'