Dear Nicole,

It’s been a tough few weeks, huh? Let’s recap. First you flew across the world for the premiere of Australia, leaving your baby daughter in Nashville. That would be difficult for any new mother.

In the 24 hours you were here, things didn’t go altogether well. You wore a fitted white dress to the Australia press conference and said ‘I might retire from acting and have more children’ and so, predictably, the media announced you were pregnant again. That’s gotta suck.

Then you had a rather odd turn on the red carpet with Tracey Grimshaw. The interview ran live on A Current Affair, you were very giggly and I’m afraid you didn’t make much sense. Perhaps you were nervous? This is surprising given that you’ve been walking red carpets for twenty years. Anyway, next it was back to the US for a similarly uncomfortable interview with David Letterman. Like many, I saw the clip on youtube and was struck by how awkward and stilted it was. Maybe Dave was in a mood?

While all that was happening, the UK Times published an extraordinary review of Australia that barely mentioned the movie except to say that because you’re in it, women won’t go. The journalist wrote some stinging things including “Kidman is one of those women who turns other women off…she’s one of the most overrated actors in the world… Kidman is exquisitely accomplished at being awful… she drifts around films like a lost porcelain doll,..Australia the country deserves redder blood than this.”

Next, nasty Anti-Nicole Facebook groups began popping up as people bonded over not liking you. Finally, you were lambasted for carrying Sunday Rose unrestrained in the back of a car in Spain and journalists began to ponder why you’ve suddenly become so polarising. So, why?

Well Nicole, just quietly, between us, I must admit these days I’m struggling to defend you, even to myself. It’s not a tall poppy thing and it has nothing to do with acting. What do I know about acting? It’s not jealousy either. I don’t envy your looks or your life because from here they both appear exhaustingly high maintenance. All that getting dressed up, faffing around with hair and make-up, constant travel, cameras shoved in your face, interviews, tabloid scrutiny…ugh, I’d rather eat a bowl of fingernails. Still, I’ve been trying to understand my ambivalence so I sat down and traced the source of it all the way back to…sunscreen. Remember sunscreen? It came up in that interview you gave to US Marie Claire a while back. The journalist asked flat out if you’d used Botox and your answer was an “exasperated” no. And then you went further. . “To be honest, I am completely natural. I have nothing in my face or anything. I wear sunscreen, and I don’t smoke. I take care of myself. And I’m very proud to say that.” Many took you at your word. Others were care factor zero. But some women, including me, had a hard time reconciling what you said with what we see. Nic? You lost me at sunscreen.

OK, so what does this say about those of us who can’t get past the sunscreen? To dismiss it as bitchiness, as some men do, is inaccurate. I think it says we want our female celebrities to reflect some truthful glimmer of ourselves. Something real. Something vulnerable. Something imperfect. We need to see the chinks in the armour because from those chinks come humanity and humility. And we demand both these qualities from the Celebrities We Love.

In case you want to join that elite club of adored famous women, Nic, there are rules for membership. You must be a girls’ girl. You must be self-deprecating. Sometimes, you must wear no make-up. Most importantly, you must speak truths about your life experience which echo our own. Struggles with aging. With weight. With love. With mother-guilt. With vanity. With hair. Because when a celebrity refuses to do that? When she refuses to reflect anything back to us that we recognise?  It makes us feel insecure about our own failings and we’re liable to turn. A quick example: Naomi Watts. Your best buddy is also internationally famous, followed by paparazzi and married to a famous man. But when she leaves home, she doesn’t make any discernible concession to her fame or photographers. Yes, I agree this takes enormous courage or perhaps she just can’t be bothered. But when I see pictures of her wearing no make-up, shorts or thongs, pushing her pram or doing the shopping or playing with her son in the park, I think ‘hey, she’s just like me’ (albeit if I had an Oscar nomination and my day job involved Sean Penn). That’s how women connect. And maybe your pristine public image of perfection wipes out the possibility of that kind of connection. Hey, I’m sure you’re not lying awake at night wondering about all this but there you go.

Ultimately, Nicole, it’s your prerogative to do and say whatever you like. You owe us nothing. Not even the truth if you don’t want to tell it. You are responsible only to yourself, Keith and your kids. So, in the spirit of the festive season let’s agree to put the sunscreen behind us and continue as we were, me reading about you and you blissfully unaware of my existence. Merry Christmas.

NOTE: Regulars would be aware that we’ve covered much of this ground before on this blog but I’ve not written about it in my newspaper column so forgive any repetition. Also, commenters, please be aware, this is not an invitation to sledge or slag Nicole. I don’t want to indulge a hate-fest. Think Yule and be cool, peeps. The purpose of this column was not to bitch about Nicole but to examine why she’s so polarising.