Nicole Kidman is mourning the loss of her mother Janelle Ann Kidman. The actress announced the death of her mom at age 84 through a statement that Halina Rejn, who directed her in Babygirl, read onstage at the Venice Film Festival Sept. 6 while accepting the star’s award for Best Actress.
“Today, I arrived in Venice to find out shortly after, that my beautiful, brave mother Janelle Ann Kidman has just passed,” Nicole’s statement said. “I am in shock and I have to go to my family.” The statement continued, “But this award is for her. She shaped me, she guided me and she made me. I’m beyond grateful that I that I get to say her name to all of you through Halina. The collision of life and art is heartbreaking, and my heart is broken.”
The cause of Janelle’s death was not made public. Nicole’s mother, who worked as a nursing instructor, had suffered health issues in recent years. In 2022, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Oscar winner shared that she returned to her family’s native Australia to be with her mom. “We’re down here primarily to take care of my mother,” the now-57-year-old said in an NPR interview in January of that year, “and to have her surrounded by her grandchildren.”
Nicole added that the family visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales together. “Even though omicron is raging through this country, we were able to take her into the gallery after hours and show her the Matisse exhibit,” she said, “which coming from a mother who’s raised me in the arts, it was soothing balm.”
The actress added, “I’m at the place where I’m being given the chance to view the world-because of how close we are, my mom is giving me the chance to view the world through an 81-year-old woman’s eyes. That is so beneficial right now because she’s so cognizant. She has every faculty, brain faculty, available. She hasn’t lost anything. She hasn’t lost any memory, which is fascinating.” Nicole’s mom and dad Antony Kidman, who worked as a psychologist, have been among their daughter’s biggest cheerleaders throughout her career. They occasionally accompanied her at celebrity events, including at the 2003 Oscars, where they cheered her on from the audience as she won her first Academy Award for The Hours.
After the actress’ father died at age 75 in 2014, Nicole leaned on the support of her husband, Keith Urban and their daughters Sunday Rose, now 16, and Faith Margaret, 13.
“I called him screaming and crying and he was about to go on stage and he walked off stage and he got on a plane. He’d just gotten there,” the actress said on CBS Sundays Mornings in 2016. “He flew six hours and he was right back and he literally picked me up and pretty much carried me through the next two weeks.” The actress added, “And I also had my children going, ‘It’s gonna be alright, Mama.’ It’s interesting the way children view things, ’cause they’re like, ‘You’ve still got your mommy.'” Janelle, who shared a close bond with Nicole, had also battled breast cancer in 1985, when the Moulin Rouge star was 17. “It was very hard to see your mother going through such pain,” Nicole told the Sydney Morning Herald in 1997. “It opened my eyes to mortality and to pain and suffering, and from that point on I was determined to support and be a part of and in some way help.” Nicole and then-husband Tom Cruise went on to finance the Women’s Reproductive Cancer Center at UCLA. In 2023, 12 years after they divorced, the actress and Keith made a financial gift to Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville to help fund clinical trials for breast cancer treatments. In addition to the actress, Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret, Janelle is also survived by the actress’ younger sister Antonia Kidman, her six kids and Nicole and Tom’s children Bella Kidman Cruise, 31, and Connor Cruise, 29.