Nicole Kidman recounts devastating night in Venice after her mother’s death

Nicole Kidman looked back on the harrowing moment when she learned about her mother, Janelle Ann Kidman, just few minutes before stepping on to the stage at 2024 Venice Film Festival.

The Eyes Wide Shut star won the festival’s Best Actress award for her hit film, Babygirl.

During conversation with Hoda Kotb at HISTORYTalks, the actress recalled how she was experiencing an “enormous high” on winning the award.

"I was about to go onstage and I found out my mother had died,” she said. “I went right back to the room in Venice, got into bed and was completely devastated and thought, 'I do not know how I'm gonna move forward or function now.’”

Instead of celebrating, Kidman retreated in shock. Director Halina Reijn read a statement on her behalf at the ceremony, in which the Australian-American actress dedicated the award to her mother.

“She shaped me, she guided me and she made me,” the statement said. Reijn described the “collision of life and art” as heart breaking.

Alone in Venice without her then-husband, Keith Urban, or children, the Big Little Lies star attempted to leave the city that night. 

She boarded a boat and tried to reach the airport through canals. However, feeling overwhelmed, she turned back.

The mother of four, said the painful experience reminded her that she is "resilient" and can "survive pretty much anything."

That echoes a valuable lesson she said she learned from her late mother that she's passed on to her children: "Don't ever let anyone break your spirit."

Kidman has often spoken of her mother as her “compass of life”, a smart, supportive woman who encouraged her acting career when she considered retiring in her 40s.

While the exact cause of death has not been publicly disclosed, Kidman's mother passed away in early September 2024 at age 84.

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