Nicole Kidman's secret miscarriage heartbreak during marriage to Tom Cruise

Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise pictured in 1999. Photo / Getty Images

They were Hollywood's golden couple during the 1990s until their divorce in 2001.

But beneath her loved up appearances with Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman was nursing a secret heartbreak that spanned their entire marriage.

In the July issue of UK magazine Tatler, the 50-year-old actor detailed how the couple had two miscarriages during their relationship.

Kidman had an ectopic pregnancy shortly after her 1990 marriage to Cruise and miscarried for the second time in 2001, around the time the Top Gun star filed for divorce.

"There's a huge, aching yearning. I know the yearning," Kidman told the magazine.

"And the loss! The loss of a miscarriage is not talked about enough. That's massive grief to women."

Kidman, who was just 23 when she first miscarried, told Vanity Fair in 2007 that the traumatic incident led to her and Cruise adopting Isabella, 25 and Connor, 23.

"From the minute Tom and I were married, I wanted to have babies," Kidman said.

"And we lost a baby early on, so that was really very traumatic. And that's when we would adopt [daughter] Bella."

The Big Little Lies star went on to marry Keith Urban in 2006. The couple have two daughters together, nine-year-old Sunday Rose and seven-year-old Faith, who was born via a surrogate.