Nicole Kidman on How Her Kids Helped Her ‘Rally’ After Her Father’s Death: ‘I Was Beyond Shattered’

Losing a parent is always hard, but — for Nicole Kidman — at least she had her children to comfort her.

When the 52-year-old’s father, Dr. Antony Kidman, died in 2014, it was obviously a difficult thing. “Inside?” Nicole told Tatler magazine. “I was beyond shattered. But I had to rally.” The reason for the Australian actress feeling that she needed to pick up the pieces was none other than her two daughters — Sunday Rose, 11, and Faith Margaret, 8 — shared with longtime husband Keith Urban.

“[They] said, ‘But you’re not going to be sad like this tomorrow, are you?’ That’s when you realize, y’know, you have to be OK,” the Moulin Rouge star explained. “Because they need to know that they’re safe, that their mother isn’t going to fall apart.”

“I jumped in to life. Let’s go on a plane,” she added, revealing how she tried moving on. “Let’s try things. Let’s go for it. Because who knows, right? I was never going to do theatre again. I didn’t think my heart could handle the adrenaline and the fear.”

As for how she thinks constantly traveling around the globe will affect her kids, she is aware it may be tough on them when they look back on their childhood one day.

“Who knows? When you’re older, they’ll probably think, My parents dragged me around the world. I’m never leaving this one town,” Nicole reasoned. “Kids can be quixotic. Kids can be perverse. And there’s nothing you love more. When that shift happens, and you [become a parent], it’s a cataclysmic change. Everything shifts. That depth of love is unfathomable, and deeply painful, and extraordinarily joyful.”

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That said, anyone who follows Nicole — who has been married to Keith, also 52, for more than 13 years — knows she always puts her girls first. It’s sweet to know they helped her deal with her father’s passing as it’s clear he meant — and continues to mean — so much to her.

“Today would have been my Papa’s 80th Birthday,” she wrote in an Instagram post back in December 2018, celebrating what would have been a special day for Antony, who was a psychologist and biochemist. “Miss you Papa, love you so much. ❤️.”