Nicole Kidman has revealed she wants to study to become a death doula after the passing of her mother Janelle in September 2024.
The 58-year-old Hollywood icon shared the news when speaking at the University Of San Francisco on Saturday during the private college’s Silk Speaker Series.
The Oscar winner admitted that it ‘sounds a little weird’ but she has an intense desire to help others during the last few weeks on earth.
‘I am looking to expand myself. I am looking to become a death doula,’ said the actress at the event attended by The Daily Mail.
A death doula is a non-medical professional who provides holistic, emotional, spiritual, and practical support to terminally ill individuals and their families, according to the International End Of Life Doula Association.
Nicole Kidman has revealed she wants to study to become a death doula after the passing of her mother Janelle in 2024
The 58-year-old Hollywood icon shared the news when speaking at the University Of San Francisco on Saturday during the private college’s Silk Speaker Series
‘My father was very involved with palliative care. There are birth doulas and recently I learned about death doulas. As my mother was passing, she was lonely, and there was only so much the family could provide.’
The Moulin Rouge actress explained that she and her sister have so many children between them and are so busy with their careers that they could not spend enough time with their mother so they hired a death doula.
‘That’s when I went, “I wish there was these people in the world that were there to sit impartially and just provide solace and care,”‘ said the star.
‘I feel it’s really important to have care on earth for the beginning and the end.’
Kidman also shared what her father Antony Kidman told her before he died at age 75 in 2014.
When she asked him what ‘the meaning of it all is,’ he said it was ‘to take care of the younger generation the children.’
Kidman with her mother Janelle Ann Kidman, as they attend the 2018 AACTA Awards in Sydney in 2018
The star also reflected on the advice that her father gave her when she was younger: ‘He said you need to have grit you’re not going to be the smartest person in the room so you have to use your wits.’
Elsewhere in the conversation, Kidman said that she has grown from the difficult times she has experienced in her life.
‘Sometimes you’re going to have to take it on the chin and that’s OK. It’s your life and you define it. Who cares what someone else thinks? Don’t give your power to anybody else. They don’t get to define you.’
Finally, Kidman also told the sold-out crowd that she was speaking at USF because she is the daughter of academics: ‘Thus I am here at a university promoting education… it means a lot to me.’
