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In her most revealing interview ever, Nicole Kidman tells British Vogue that when she married Tom Cruise aged 22, friends told her to forget her career because it would soon be over.

If she wed one of the most famous actors in the world, they insisted, she would become nothing but Cruise’s wife.

Nic recalls: ‘I’m like, “I don’t care. I’m in love. I want to be married.” And then I was his “wife” and they were like, “See, we told you.” I’m like, “So what? I wasn’t meant to marry the man I love? Of course I’ll throw my career away. I don’t care”.’

Forgetting to add that, before she met Cruise in 1990 on the set of action flick Days Of Thunder and pretty much instantly married him, she was mostly a minor actress in Australia whose films including teen movie BMX Bandits and the drama Bush Christmas in which she saves an outback Aussie sheep farm.

As for putting her career on hold, she starred in 13 movies while married to Cruise, not least in the incredibly not sexy ‘erotic’ thriller Eyes Wide Shut with her husband and in Batman Forever.

And as soon as their ten-year marriage was over, she starred in Baz Luhrmann’s hit movie Moulin Rouge! She was by now an international superstar. Not in spite of being Mrs Cruise, some might say, but because she was Mrs Cruise.

When she married Tom Cruise aged 22, Nicole Kidman's friends insisted she would become nothing but the actor's wife

It is bewildering that after so long – she and Cruise divorced 25 years ago – Nic feels the need to rake over her time with the Mission Impossible star. Unless it’s because of his mega-celebrity.

Her poor-little-me tale of falling in love with a superstar at 22 and sacrificing all for him does not bear scrutiny – she did very well out of being Mrs Cruise and she’s still milking his name!

Crikey, who does Nic think she’s kidding?

Jonathan Ross says that since the 2024 drama series One Day, actor Leo Woodall has developed a tendency to mumble his dialogue. A bit rich, Wossy, coming from you – a presenter who’s made a career out of comically not being able to say your rs.

Drop the dead dog

Anne Hathaway is right to call for movies in which a dog dies to be given an R rating, as it is too upsetting. There is a website called doesthedogdie.com which warns you if a pooch gets it in a movie.

In Old Yeller, the faithful-to-the-end hero dies from rabies; in Marley & Me, he succumbs to a twisted stomach.

Why can’t more films have happy doggy endings, like 1963’s The Incredible Journey when Bodger, who we thought had died, limps home to reunite with his family?

Amy sprinting to popularity title

Gold medalist Amy Hunt of Great Britain celebrates winning the Women's 200m Final at the 2026 European Athletics Championship in Birmingham

Having won 100m and 200m golds in the European Championships, sprinter Amy Hunt, 24, is on a fast-track to become Britain’s most loved female athlete.

The Cambridge University graduate with a huge YouTube following, who trains five hours a day and listens to Mamma Mia! before races, has sponsors lining up to sign her for her likeability factor. Move over Emma Raducanu. Here’s an athlete we girls can look up to – and who actually wins!

Good to hear that before appearing in HBO’s adaptation of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books, actress Bel Powley refuses to trash the author in the way ex stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson did. Bel says: ‘I strongly disagree with JK Rowling’s views on gender,’ adding: ‘I love Harry Potter, I grew up with the books, I love the magic.’

See, you can disagree on gender and still love JK.

There's much po-faced speculation as to whether Brad Pitt is back on the booze big time, having once claimed he could ‘drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka’.

He’s revealed that after seven years sober he now occasionally has a glass of wine or two with his girlfriend of four years Ines de Ramon. It’s always black and white with the killjoys. Drink a little more than recommended and suddenly you’re Paul Gascoigne.

Mossy memories

The sight of Kate Moss and her daughter Lila frolicking in the Med brought back happy memories of Mum and me splashing around in the ocean on family holidays, writes Amanda Platell

The sight of Kate Moss and her daughter Lila frolicking in the Med brought back happy memories of Mum and me splashing around in the ocean on family holidays wearing matching flowered bathing caps, while Dad and my brothers were off doing boys’ stuff. Mum didn’t look like Kate, nor me

Lila, yet there is a special bond between mothers and daughters and together in the water we both felt like mermaids.

What joy it was to witness my first eclipse of the sun. The only other chance I’ve had was in Oz in 1964 when I was seven. Having painstakingly made my pinhole projector from a Coco Pops box, it was ruined by the feral Dorazio brothers. Despite warnings not to leave the classroom nor look at the sun, they rushed outside, smashing our boxes on the way, only for the teachers to drag them back in and tie them to their chairs. It may have taken 62 years, but seeing the eclipse was worth the wait.

Westminster wars

What staggers me most about Andy Burnham is how, despite his ambition to get into No 10, his policies are so vacuous. Here’s what we’ve learnt from his ‘listening exercise’:

• He plans to reduce vape shops, is considering banning disposable barbecues as the UK burns, and hopes to find a way not to free PC Andrew Harper’s killers.

• Greggs has renamed its ‘sausage, bean and cheese melt’ the ‘sausage, bean and cheese thing’ as Andy can’t remember the name despite claiming to be a fan.

• And he’s determined to house more asylum seekers in middle-class areas ‘as a point of principle’. Why not put them in the constituencies of his party’s 405 MPs – and hear the Labour benches squeal, knowing they’d lose their seats?

Rod, 81, may not want to talk about it, but his worried fans do – and many are asking if it’s time he replaced his rock act with a rocking chair

As Rod Stewart welcomes his sixth grand child he has to cancel the last dates of his tour in Mexico and the US for an operation to put a stent in his heart. This, after he had to pause during a previous show and use an oxygen mask before continuing. Rod, 81, may not want to talk about it, but his worried fans do – and many are asking if it’s time he replaced his rock act with a rocking chair.

Kids in one of our most deprived areas achieved 70 per cent As and A*s at A-level, at Michaela Community school. It’s run by ‘Britain’s strictest teacher’ Katharine Birbalsingh. Isn’t it time Education Secretary Lucy Powell apologised to Mrs Birbalsingh, after claiming prioritising academic learning let down disadvantaged students?

Megs never hugs a moggie

Cookie Queens, a film about fundraising girl scouts making biscuits – co-produced by the Sussexes – was beaten at the US Box Office by a compilation of cat videos featuring skateboarding felines. Just revenge says my moggie Ted – as the Sussexes clearly don’t like cats. ‘When have you ever seen Meghan hug one,’ he asks?

The answer’s never.