Nicole Kidman is training to become a death doula.
The 58-year-old actress noted the idea “may sound a little weird” but she was inspired to help support people and their loved ones during their final days because of her and her sister Antonia’s experiences before their mother, Janelle Ann Kidman, died in September 2024 aged 84.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Kidman said during a Silk Speaker Series talk at the University of San Francisco’s War Memorial Gym on Saturday: “As my mother was passing, she was lonely, and there was only so much the family could provide.
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“Between my sister and I, we have so many children and our careers and our work, and wanting to take care of her because my father wasn’t in the world anymore, and 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.’
“So that’s part of my expansion and one of the things I will be learning.”
The Babygirl actress isn’t the only famous face to reveal plans to be a death doula.
In 2021, actress Riley Keough revealed she had undergone training and found supporting others proved to be helpful with her own grief over her brother Benjamin Keough taking his own life in July 2020.
The Daisy Jones and the Six star – whose mother Lisa Marie Presley died in January 2023 aged 54 – said: “That’s really what’s helped me, being able to put myself in a position of service. If I can help other people, maybe I can find some way to help myself.”
