Nicole Kidman was protected from sexual harassment by her marriage to Tom Cruise, the 51-year-old actress revealed in an open essay published this week in New York Magazine.
The two met on the set of the 1990s film "Days of Thunder" and began a whirlwind romance that saw them married that same year before calling it quits in 2001, USA Today reported.
Kidman is reluctant to discuss details of her previous marriage out of respect for her current husband, Keith Urban, but in her essay, she offered some insight into what it was like being a wife at 22.
"I got married very young, but it definitely wasn't power for me — it was protection," she wrote, adding that she married for love. "But being married to an extremely powerful man kept me from being sexually harassed."
Kidman noted that she would still work but was "still very much cocooned," and when she left the marriage, she had to grow up quickly.
"Of course I've had #MeToo moments — since I was little!," she continued. "But do I want to expose them in an article? No. Do they come out in my work? Absolutely."
Kidman has consistently shown solidarity with the #MeToo movement.
Last month she said it could help both men and women move forward because it was a movement of "respect and equality and decency," Variety noted.
During her acceptance speech at the Screen Actors Guild Awards earlier this year, Kidman noted that women were proving themselves to be "potent and powerful and viable," IndieWire reported.
"I just beg that the industry stays behind us, because our stories are finally being told, it's only the beginning, and I'm so proud to be a part of a community that is instigating this change," she said.
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