Nicole Kidman called out a journalist’s “sexist” question about her ex-husband Tom Cruise during a recent interview.
The Australian actor was being interviewed by The Observer about her latest release, biopic Being The Ricardos, in which she plays late Hollywood actor Lucille Ball.
Nicole was speaking about her character’s relationship with Desi Arnaz – played by Javier Bardem – after the real-life married couple appeared on TV sitcom I Love Lucy in the US in the 1950s.
However, Nicole was not impressed when the journalist then asked about her previous marriage to the Mission Impossible star.
Of Lucille and Desi, Nicole had said: “It’s about a creative and romantic relationship that doesn’t work out. But from it come some extraordinary things. And I love that. I love that it’s not a happy ending.
“This film says you can make an extraordinary relationship thrive and leave remnants of it that exist forever,” she continued. “Yeah, that’s really gorgeous. You can’t make people behave how you want them to, and sometimes you’re going to fall in love with someone who isn’t going to be the person you spend the rest of your life with. And I think that’s all very relatable. You may have kids with them. You may not, but they were very much in love.”
The journalist then asked “with exquisite care” if Nicole was also referring to her marriage to Tom with her answer.
She then replied: “Oh, my God, no, no. Absolutely not. No. I mean, that’s, honestly, so long ago that that isn’t in this equation. So, no.”
The journalist claimed Nicole became “angry” and continued: “And I would ask not to be pigeonholed that way, either. It feels to me almost sexist, because I’m not sure anyone would say that to a man. And at some point, you go, ‘Give me my life. In its own right.’”
HuffPost UK had contacted a representative for Nicole Kidman and is awaiting a response.
Nicole and Tom married in 1990 and went on to adopt two children together, Isabella, now 29, and Connor, 26.
Tom later filed for divorce in 2001 citing “irreconcilable differences”.
Nicole previously described their divorce as a “major shock” in a 2006 interview with Ladies’ Home Journal.
“He was huge; still is. To me, he was just Tom, but to everybody else, he is huge. But he was lovely to me. And I loved him. I still love him,” she said at the time.
Being The Ricardos is available to stream now on Amazon Prime Video.