Tom Cruise ‘Irritated’ About Ex-Wife Nicole Kidman Speaking About Marriage in Interviews: ‘Feels Used’

Nicole Kidman is dredging up stories about her ex-husband, Tom Cruise, once again, which has the Mission: Impossible superstar seeing red and ranting that he’s tired of her living in the past and harping on about their failed marriage.

“Tom doesn’t understand why Nicole constantly seems to constantly reference the times they shared together,” a source exclusively tells In Touch. “Even if it is more about the work they did together, it still bothers him because it’s so far in the past and something he’d like to forget.”

Nicole, 57, and Tom, 62, tied the knot in 1990, and after more than 10 years of marriage, split in 2001. The couple share kids Isabella, 31, and Connor, 29, whom they adopted during their relationship. Following their divorce, Nicole married Keith Urban in 2006, while the Jack Reacher actor was married to Katie Holmes from 2006 to 2012.

“He’s said goodbye to that chapter of his life so long ago and doesn’t understand why she can’t do the same, especially since she’s supposedly so happy with Keith,” the insider explains. “For Nicole, it’s just nonsense because she’s just answering questions that pertain to her career, but there’s no denying she does love to go into detail about Tom’s creative genius.”

Despite being in a high-profile relationship, the pair rarely spoke about their connection during their marriage. The source says Nicole’s “star power was at its peak when she was with Tom.” Even though she went on to win Oscars later in her career, it was her first marriage that “catapulted her to stardom.”

“That’s when she really made it. Tom understands all that, but he’s just at a tipping point,” the insider explains. “He can handle most of the noise and rumors about him, but Nicole has been so poisonous about him to all their mutual friends.”

According to the source, it “irritates” Tom that his ex-wife is “willing to get mileage out of his name when it suits her,” adding, “He feels used and wishes she’d have the couth to simply make those questions off limits, the way he does.”

Nicole made headlines in July after she made a rare comment about her ex-husband when discussing their 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut. The pair played a married couple, whose relationship is turned upside down when the wife confesses to fantasizing about another man, prompting the husband to join an underground group.

When discussing the film with the Los Angeles Times, she was asked if director Stanley Kubrick took inspiration from her and Tom’s real life romance for the film.

“I suppose he was mining it,” she replied on July 16. “There were ideas he was interested in. He’d ask a lot of questions. But he had a strong sense of the story he was telling. I do remember him saying, ‘Triangles are hard. You have to tread carefully when it’s a triangle.’”

Nicole continued, “Because one person could feel ganged up on. But he was aware of that and knew how to manage us.”

In the past, the Australian actress said that Eyes Wide Shut included the “narrative” of their romance at the time. “We were happily married through that,” Nicole told the New York Times in October 2020. “We would go go-kart racing after those scenes. We’d rent out a place and go racing at 3 in the morning. I don’t know what else to say. Maybe I don’t have the ability to look back and dissect it. Or I’m not willing to.”