Kidman Opens Up About Cruise Divorce

By Stephen M. Silverman

06/07/2005 at 01:00 PM EDT

Tom Cruise's ex-wife Nicole Kidman is carefully sidestepping the matter of her former husband's relatively new relationship with Katie Holmes.

Without specifically pointing a finger at the photo op of Holmes and Cruise kissing in Rome, Kidman says mixing your personal life and publicity can be dangerous. "In terms of your life, if you start to exploit it, then what's real, and what's not? What's yours, and what isn't?" she tells Vanity Fair magazine.

Kidman, who's promoting her own new movie, Bewitched, recalls what is was like on the red carpet when her nearly 10-year marriage to Cruise ended in 2001: "When it all exploded, and we were in Cannes with Moulin Rouge ... my sister and I slept in the same bed together. She would just hold me," Kidman tells the magazine.

"When we came out of the big screening, and there were swarms of people, I felt like I couldn't breathe. So I just sort of eyeballed her as if to say, 'Help! Help!' Taking absolute control, she took me into the bathroom, unlaced my corset and the dress I was wearing, took my shoes off, and said, 'You're going to be okay.'"

Meanwhile, photographers were again out en masse Monday night at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood for the premiere of Batman Begins, to capture Cruise and Holmes together.

The Associated Press reports that Cruise – whose arrival with Homes elicited screams from the crowd – stole the spotlight from the movie's leading man, Christian Bale.

As for Holmes, asked on the red carpet – while Cruise was across the street, signing autographs for fans – to confirm reports of the couple's plans to marry, she smiled and told AP: "Well, you know, we have to talk about that, together, first. But thank you."