Remember back in the day, like, the early ’90s? Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were the couple. Seriously, they were everywhere. They got married, adopted a couple of kids – Isabella in ’92, then Connor in ’95. And for a while, it seemed like they had it all, you know? The perfect Hollywood romance. But, as things sometimes go, it all came crashing down in 2001 when Cruise filed for divorce. The reason? That classic, slightly vague “irreconcilable differences.” It’s funny how often that phrase pops up, isn’t it?
Now, neither of them really talked much about the split in public at first. It was a massive deal, though, constantly in the headlines and whispered about. But then, in August 2001, Nicole Kidman went on “The Late Show” with David Letterman, and well, things got interesting. Letterman, being Letterman, just went straight for it, no beating around the bush. “I heard you’re getting divorced, how’s that going?” he asked. And Kidman, after admitting she’d been asked about it a million times, dropped this absolute mic-drop of a line, just six words that everyone, and I mean everyone, started talking about.
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“Well, I can wear heels now.”
And honestly, the audience went wild! It was a brilliant, subtle jab, poking fun at the height difference between them. She’s 5’11”, he’s 5’7″ – quite a gap, when you think about it. After the cheers died down a bit, she just calmly said, “Let’s move on,” and that was that. It was a moment that, you know, just stuck.
Deja Vu: Another Divorce, Another “Irreconcilable Differences”
Fast forward to 2025, and suddenly that old clip of Kidman’s heel comment started making the rounds again. Why? Because news broke that Nicole Kidman and her country music star husband, Keith Urban, had also called it quits. It was a bit of a shocker, really. TMZ was the first to report it on September 29th, and then, a few days later, People magazine confirmed everything, even getting details from the court documents. Talk about history repeating itself, right?
Kidman hasn’t, as far as I know, made any jokes about wearing heels this time around. (For the record, she’s only an inch taller than Urban, so maybe less material for that kind of humor.) But People magazine did report something else that felt strangely familiar: she also cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for her split from Urban. The exact same reason she gave for the divorce from Tom Cruise. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, what exactly those “irreconcilable differences” really entail sometimes.
Kidman and Urban, they met in 2005 and got married the very next year. They were another one of those power couples, definitely. But, alas, even strong connections sometimes just… fizzle out. Sources close to the situation apparently told TMZ that Urban had moved into his own place earlier in the year, leaving Kidman at their family home with their two daughters, Sunday, 17, and Faith, 14. And apparently, it was Urban’s decision to end things. While it might have seemed sudden to the rest of us, it seems those closest to them sort of saw it coming.
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The Writing on the Wall
“Their lives were moving in different directions,” a source told People magazine, and I think that really sums it up, doesn’t it? “Once he quietly set up his own place, it felt like the writing was on the wall,” they added. And another source even mentioned, “People close to Keith felt like the split was kind of inevitable.” It’s a sad reality, but sometimes, even when you try, things just don’t work out. It’s a part of life, I suppose, even for Hollywood stars.
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