Where Does Nicole Kidman's Relationship With Her Older Kids Stand Today?

In the wake of her divorce, attention has shifted to how Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's daughters, Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret, are taking the news of their parents' separation. With her family facing a reckoning, Kidman might be getting flashbacks, since this is not the first time conversations about Kidman's relationships have drifted to her children. In 2001, the "Practical Magic" star divorced her then-husband, Tom Cruise, with whom Kidman shares two adopted children (Isabella and Connor Cruise). Kidman has mostly kept private about her relationship with both children from that relationship, especially after the divorce led to Cruise winning custody of the pair. A great rift was created between the children and their mother, one that seemingly lasted until 2024.

Before losing her mother, Janelle Kidman, in September 2024, a source told New Idea, "It hurt Janelle too that she and [her late husband] Antony were estranged from Bella and Connor," adding, "They were their first two grandchildren and were once very close." Janelle's confession to her actor daughter apparently compounded Kidman's desire to reconcile with the Cruises. In a June 2024 conversation with DuJour, Kidman publicly spoke of her children with Cruise for the first time in years. "I have four children, so to stay in touch with them is very important," she said, adding that her new relationship with Isabella and Connor is reliant on text messages. The long-awaited reconciliation was welcomed by both children, who wrote their mother a heartfelt letter following Janelle's passing.

Their parents' divorce was not the only thing that drove a wedge between Isabella and Connor Cruise's relationship with their mother. Prior to their split, Nicole Kidman spoke candidly about her relationship with her children in a 2007 interview on GMTV, saying (via Hello! Magazine), "My kids don't call me mommy; they don't even call me mom. They call me Nicole, which I hate and tell them off for it." As the children were not infants at the time they were adopted by the celebrity couple, this could have been a response to their newfound family; however, it probably was a punch in the gut for Kidman as she revealed this information six years following her separation from Tom Cruise and his custody win.

Considering their father's prominent role in the Church of Scientology, which Isabella and Connor were also a part of, there has been speculation that the cult helped estrange Kidman from her children. Given Scientology's strict rules, Kidman may have received limited access to her children, as ex-Scientologist Mike Rinder alleged in his book, "A Billion Years." Rinder further claimed that Kidman's ties to psychiatry likely impacted the relationship, what with her father being a noted Australian psychiatrist. The field of study, which is viewed as a form of abuse by Scientologists, purportedly put the actor under a watchful eye from the church and may have led to further disconnection from her children. Hopefully, things won't be nearly as difficult for Kidman and her children with Urban.