Kidman tells magazine about Cruise

The relationship was “real,” Nicole Kidman insists -- disputing media reports that her bond with ex-husband Tom Cruise was a marriage of convenience.

“The marriage existed because it was two people in love,” she says in the December issue of Vanity Fair. “It’s that simple. They said I’m gay, they’ve said everyone’s gay. I personally don’t believe in doing huge lawsuits about that stuff. Tom [Cruise] does.”

The passion was so great that she was willing to have a baby with him without tying the knot, which is what she wishes she had done. “I was willing to give up everything,” she recalls. “I do it when I do a movie too. I’m willing to go, ‘Yeah, bring it on, consume me, intoxicate me.’ I want to feel alive -- I want to reel, basically.”

Her life “collapsed” after the breakup, Kidman concedes. So much so that she was in a fetal position, weeping on the floor, when her parents came to get her. Professionally, she felt ostracized by the show business community who figured “it’s over for her now.” Scientology didn’t figure into the split, she maintains, though she never did embrace it. More problematic was the harsh glare of the spotlight because she felt she was there as “Tom’s wife.”

Though it feels good to be immersed in her work right now, the previous package was her preference. “This makes me sad, but I still would probably choose a marriage and an intact family over my career,” she said. “ ... I didn’t have to have a huge career. I would have liked to be able to make a ‘To Die For’ occasionally and things that could stimulate me.”