Tom Cruise was among the A-listers who were noticeably absent from the Oscars, which took place on Sunday, March 12th at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. While Zendaya’s absence was felt by all on the red carpet, we know that it was due to her being in London with boyfriend Tom Holland following her appearance at Paris Fashion Week. However, Cruise’s absence was a little more interesting, as it’s being reported that he skipped the awards ceremony to avoid running into ex-wife Nicole Kidman, who he was married to between 1990 and 2001 after meeting on the set of Days of Thunder. Woah!
The Real Reason Tom Cruise Missed This Year's Oscars
With Top Gun: Maverick being nominated for several awards, including the biggest one of the night, i.e., Best Picture, you would think that its lead actor and producer would be one of the first to RSVP 'yes' for the ceremony. However, that wasn’t the case, as the 60-year-old actor reportedly didn’t want to attend as ex-wife Nicole Kidman, 55, was also attending with current husband Keith Urban, also 55. We don’t know how true this is, as previous reports insisted that he couldn’t attend because he was busy filming Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part II, so let’s take everything with a pinch of salt.
According to the Daily Mail, an insider said, "Tom was not there because she was there, and he did not want a run-in," in reference to his ex-wife of almost 11 years. However, another source insisted that there was no truth to those rumors, and his decision not to attend was "not personal," and simply due to scheduling conflicts. Who do we believe?!
Another rumor that is floating around the web doesn’t relate to Kidman at all, but *does* relate to host Jimmy Kimmel and the Knocked Up director Judd Apatow. According to Variety, Cruise reportedly feared the worst when he learned that Apatow was helping Kimmel write his material for the ceremony, and chose to steer clear of the Oscars to avoid being made fun of in the opening monologue. Apatow made more than a few jokes at Cruise's expense at the Directors Guild of America Awards last month, even though Cruise wasn’t in attendance.
One of the jokes he made was in reference to Cruise's height. "The special effects in Maverick were so top-notch, I couldn’t even see the stack of phone books Tom Cruise sat on to reach the flight controls," Apatow said last month, while another joke referenced the infamous moment on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2005 whereby he professed his love to Katie Holmes while jumping up and down on the couch. Apatow said: "Remember when Tom Cruise jumped up and down on the couch and we all thought, 'What a lunatic!' And now he rides a motorcycle off a cliff and BASE jumps and we’re all like, 'Tom’s fine!'"
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What Has Tom Cruise Previously Said About Nicole Kidman?
Akin to their romance, Cruise and Kidman's divorce was also kept as private as possible; although the pair have said one or two things to the press over the years. Ten years ago, for example, Cruise told Vanity Fair, "She knows why, and I know why," in reference to the reason for their split.
In the same 2013 interview, he went on to reference their two adopted children, Bella, 30, and Connor, 28, adding: "She’s the mother of my children, and I wish her well. And I think that you just move on. And I don’t say that lightly. I don’t say that with anything. Things happen in life, and you do everything you can, and in every possible way, and there’s a point at which you just sometimes have to face the brutal reality." We would give anything to get the real inside scoop!
And What Has Nicole Kidman Said About Her Marriage To Tom Cruise?
The Nine Perfect Strangers actress has also been very private about their marriage and divorce, although she did very briefly mention it in an interview with Harper's Bazaar back in 2021. The Big Little Lies star explained how she felt like nobody wanted to talk about her acting career when she was with Cruise, saying all they wanted to talk about was her personal life and marriage.
In the interview, she blamed her youth for seemingly being too open with the press, saying: "I was young. I think I offered it up? Maybe I’ve gotten a bit more trepidatious, but I’m always trying to be as open as possible. I just prefer to live in the world that way."
