Actress Nicole Kidman has had a rocky two years battling work and life, while still maintaining public appearances and keeping a smile on her face.
After suffering two major losses and mounting backlash from some of her recent films, Kidman is making a major pivot that no one saw coming.
It’s been over a year and a half since the actress lost her mom, Janelle Ann Kidman, to a long illness. Kidman got the news shortly after arriving at the Venice Film Festival in September 2024. At the time, she was supposed to be awarded for Best Actress in her film “Babygirl,” but left before she could receive it.
Details surrounding Janelle’s illness have not been disclosed. However, in the time since her passing, Kidman has found ways to honor her mother with heartfelt posts and kind words in interviews.
Now she’s taking things a step further by adding another job to her resume in remembrance of her mom. During a visit to the University of San Francisco on Saturday, April 11, the Academy Award-winning actress spoke at the school’s Silk Speaker Series, where she led the crowd in on her next big move.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Kidman said, “I am looking to expand myself. I am looking to become a death doula.”
Even though she admitted that the idea “sounded a little weird,” it came from her experience of losing her mother, who passed away at age 84.
According to the International End Of Life Doula Association, a death doula is “a nonmedical companion who provides personalized and compassionate support to individuals, families, and their circles of care as they encounter and navigate death, loss, and mortality.”
“My father was very involved with palliative care,” Kidman said. “There are birth doulas and recently I learned about death doulas. As my mother was passing, she was lonely, and there was only so much the family could provide.”
Her father, Anthony Kidman, was 75 when he died in 2014 after falling in Singapore while visiting his daughter Antonia Kidman.
Further explaining her decision to embark on this new career journey Nicole said, “Between my sister and I, we have so many children and our careers and our work, and wanting to take care of her because my father wasn’t in the world anymore, and that’s when I went, ‘I wish there was these people in the world that were there to sit impartially and just provide solace and care.’”
Fans cheered on Kidman for taking on a new role after divorce and losing her mother, two matters that had many wondered how and if she’s bounce back.
One Internet user said, “I know her not, yet I like her very much. It is truly refreshing to see someone with beauty seeking to help others.”
“I think it’s a wonderful idea. Imagine requesting a death doula for a loved one and Nicole Kidman shows up at their door,” said another.
A third person encouraging her added, “It’s meaningful and purposeful. Do it, Nicole. It will help you overcome with the loss you have had in recent years.”
One person who seems to have more knowledge about doulas said, “Death doulas are incredible. What a great thing for her to explore and I hope it gives her peace and closure with the loss of her mother.”
Since her parents’ deaths, Kidman now has her sister Antonia, who is 55 and has six children total. Kidman has two estranged kids, Bella Cruise, 33, and Connor Cruise, 31, whom she adopted with her ex-husband, Tom Cruise. She also has Sunday Rose Kidman Urban and Faith Margaret Kidman Urban, whom she welcomed with her new ex-husband Keith Urban.
