Nicole Kidman Was “Struggling” During Oscar Win After Tom Cruise Split

Nicole Kidman is looking back at a complicated time.

Though she reached a major career milestone in 2003 when she took home an Oscar for her role in The Hours, Nicole admits she was grappling with a difficult time in her personal life. Not long before her win, she and Tom Cruise finalized their divorce after 11 years of marriage.

“I was struggling with things in my personal life, yet my professional life was going so well,” Nicole told author Dave Karger in his new book 50 Oscar Nights, according to People. “That’s what happens, right?” 

In fact, the Big Little Lies star—who shares daughter Isabella, 30, and son Connor, 28, with her ex-husband—recalled she wasn’t quite up to celebrating after her big win.

“I’m not a big party girl, so I was going to skip the Vanity Fair party,” she added, “and everyone was like, ‘You’ve got to go. You’ve got to walk through the party carrying your Academy Award. 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.'”