Nicole Kidman was still healing from her divorce from Tom Cruise when she accepted her first Academy Award in 2003.
“I was struggling with things in my personal life, yet my professional life was going so well,” the actress recalled to author Dave Karger in his new book, “50 Oscar Nights,” according to People.
The “Bombshell” star added, “That’s what happens, right?”
Kidman, 56, and Cruise, 61, divorced in 2001 after 11 years of marriage and share two children together: daughter Isabella, 31, and son Connor, 28.
Two years after the split, Kidman took home the Oscar for Best Actress for her role as Virginia Woolf in “The Hours.”
During her acceptance speech, she memorably became emotional, telling the audience, “Russell Crowe said, ‘Don’t cry when you get up there,’ and now I’m crying.”
Kidman was then played off the stage before she could get through her acceptance speech and felt like going home after the star-studded Hollywood event.
“I’m not a big party girl, so I was going to skip the Vanity Fair party, and everyone was like, ‘You’ve got to go. You’ve got to walk through the party carrying your Academy Award,’” she said in the book.
“I said, ‘That just feels like gloating, and it doesn’t feel humble.’ Like, what? You can’t walk through carrying the award! That feels really inappropriate. They’re like, ‘That’s what you do.’”
Kidman ended up at the annual afterparty with her trophy but admitted in the tome that she was “completely overwhelmed, emotional, [and] shaking.”
“I was almost apologetic, which is so stupid. I wish I could have enjoyed it more,” she recalled.
The “Big Little Lies” alum went back to her ritzy hotel for a not-so-celebratory night in with some burgers and fries.
“I went home and ended up ordering takeout and eating it on the floor of the Beverly Hills Hotel,” she admitted. “I sat on the floor of the hotel eating French fries and a burger with my family and went to bed.”
In that moment, Kidman realized that she was ready to move on from her failed marriage to the “Top Gun” actor with someone new.
“That’s when it hit me. I went, I need to find my love; I need a love in my life. Because this is supposed to be when you go, ‘This is ours,’” she said.
“I went to bed alone; I was in bed before midnight. If I ever won again, I’m telling you, I’d be out for 24 hours.”
Fortunately, Kidman started dating Keith Urban two years later and the duo tied the knot in 2006.
Kidman and the country music star, 56, have been happily married since and share two daughters: Sunday Rose, 15, and Faith Margaret, 13.
