Nicole Kidman has shared how experiencing a personal loss led her to explore the role of a death doula.
Speaking at the University of San Francisco’s War Memorial Gym on Saturday, April 11, Kidman, 58, reflected on her mother’s final days. “As my mother was passing, she was lonely, and there was only so much the family could provide,” she said, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Kidman’s mother passed away in September 2024 at the age of 84. The actress admitted that she initially found the idea of becoming a death doula “a little weird.”
She explained, “My sister and I have many children and busy careers, and we wanted to care for her after our father was no longer around. That’s when I thought, ‘I wish there were people who could sit impartially and provide solace and care.’ This is part of my growth and one of the things I will be learning.”
According to the International End-of-Life Doula Association, an end-of-life doula “advocates self-determination and provides psychosocial, emotional, spiritual, and practical care to uphold dignity throughout the dying process.”
Kidman had previously experienced the loss of her father in 2014. Ten years later, she received news of her mother’s death while attending the 2024 Venice Film Festival.
“Today I arrived in Venice to find out shortly after, that my beautiful, brave mother Janelle Ann Kidman has just passed,” Babygirl director Halina Reijn conveyed on Kidman’s behalf at the festival. “I am in shock and I have to go to my family, but this award is for her, she shaped me, she guided me, and she made me.”
She further expressed: “I am beyond grateful that I get to say her name to all of you through Halina, the collision of life and art is heart-breaking, and my heart is broken.”
Two years prior, Kidman openly discussed her mother’s health issues.
“We’re down here [in Australia] primarily to take care of my mother and to have her surrounded by her grandchildren,” she noted on NPR’s “Fresh Air” podcast in January 2022. “So luckily, last — yesterday, even though [Covid strain] Omicron is raging through this country, we were able to take her into the gallery after hours and show her the Matisse exhibit, which, coming from a mother who’s raised me in the arts was very, very — it was soothing balm.”
In March 2025, Kidman honored her mother on what would have been her 85th birthday.
“Missing Mumma and Papa so much on what would have been her birthday today,” she shared on Instagram, alongside a picture of her parents smiling together.
In another post shared last month, she wrote, “Remembering my Mumma on her birthday. Always in my heart.”
