A once-young teenager, born in Honolulu, Hawaii, helped nurse her mother, who had cancer, back to good health. However, the parent was not affectionate and was critical of her child.
This girl was born to Aussie parents Antony and Janelle in June 1967, and her younger sister Antonia arrived several years later in July 1970. The family of three settled in Sydney.
The young girl comes from a close-knit academic family. Her mother, Janelle, was a nursing instructor and women’s rights activist, and her father, Antony, was a biochemist and a renowned researcher in breast cancer.
The girl’s sister Antonia, who is three years younger, is a journalist and a television presenter. She has often described her as “my other half.”The mom was not maternal and once admitted this to her eldest child, saying, “I’m not the kind of mother who’s going to hug you; it’s just not me, so don’t expect it.”
The mother of two was diagnosed with breast cancer when her firstborn was 17. The teen took care of her as she battled the disease and became cancer-free.The said child prayed for her mom’s survival and would later attend the Women’s Cancer Program in November 2009 at Menlo Park, California, expressing how worried she was at the thought of her parent dying:
“I think that was the pivotal point in my life because I was about to lose — or thought I would lose — the most important person in my family, the heartbeat of my family.”
The mom has been credited for giving her now-famous daughter the will to succeed even though she believed she was not made for acting, saying she was “too sensitive.”
In September 2019, the daughter appeared on “60 Minutes Australia,” and reflected on her career and childhood. While growing up in suburban Sydney, she admitted:
“There were times when I was deeply unhappy as a child, just with who I was.”
In a 2014 interview, she also revealed the Hawaiian name her parents gave her, having been born on the island of Oahu. “My mum called me Hokulani. It means heavenly star. That’s something no one really knows,” she said.
Who Is This Girl? How Did She Become Famous?
The girl in question is Nicole Kidman, who became widely famous after her acting career took off in 1987 following her stint in the Australian miniseries, “Vietnam.”
Two years later, she starred in the 1989 suspense thriller “Dead Calm.” Nicole was naked in one scene, which drew attention from viewers, including actor Tom Cruise. After seeing the movie in Hollywood, he arranged to meet her.At the time, the action movie star was one of the biggest Hollywood stars globally. He and Kidman, then 23, were married by December 1990. The actress admitted several years later that she was “impulsive” and naïve” when she agreed to wed Cruise. According to her, they lived in their own world and became dependent on each other.
When they tried to start a family, Kidman suffered an ectopic pregnancy, and when she struggled to conceive again, the couple opted to adopt a daughter, Isabella, in 1992 and a son, Connor, in 1995.
The duo had just celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary in December 2000, when Kidman, who believed she and Cruise had a wonderful life together, found out it was the opposite. Two months later, Cruise abruptly announced that he was leaving her.Just like that, their marriage ended with no explanation from the “Mission Impossible” star, who publicly stated that Kidman knew why their union failed. Kidman tried to convince him to stay but to no avail.
The couple officially divorced in August 2001, with Kidman revealing in a November 2007 interview that she suffered a miscarriage during that period. “It was incredibly traumatic for me,” she said.
How Did Nicole Marry a Country Star and Miraculously Give Birth?
Despite her bad experience with her first marriage, Kidman eventually found love again when she met country music star Keith Urban in 2005 at a Los Angeles event while filming the movie, “Fur.” The producer gushed about crossing paths with the four-time Grammy Award-winning singer, saying:
“My life changed. He is a wonderful, caring man and he makes me feel secure. We don’t ever like to be separated.”
The lovebirds exchanged wedding vows in June 2006 in Sydney and moved to a farm in their first year of marriage. There, Kidman found out that she was pregnant at age 40. She described the experience as a “miracle” because she never believed she could give birth in her lifetime.That thought came mainly because of her previous pregnancy complications. She was told there was a slight chance that she would have a biological child. Nonetheless, she and her spouse welcomed their first child together, daughter Sunday, in July 2008, in Nashville, Tennessee, where they settled.
Kidman, an Academy Award winner, candidly talked about having a child in a 2007 interview and said the experience healed her. She felt immense gratitude that it finally happened because it took a while for her to have a biological child.The Australian native and Urban, who also hails from the Land Down Under, welcomed their second daughter Faith two years later in 2010. The doting mom, now 56, spoke frankly about motherhood in a June 2018 interview.
Once known as the most beautiful woman in the world, Kidman admitted that aging had become her biggest worry, but not in terms of looks. She expressed that she wants to remain “healthy and vibrant” so that she can look after her kids, as she had them at a late stage in her life.