Nicole Kidman has been racking up the kind of post-divorce triumphs that make a traditional revenge dress seem almost understated.

It is easy to forget that the 59-year-old actress only finalized her reportedly acrimonious split from country music star Keith Urban in January.

Urban was reportedly the one who initiated the separation, announced on September 29 last year after almost two decades of marriage. At the time, sources close to the Australian actress said Kidman had been completely “blindsided.”

Since then, however, the former couple’s public fortunes appear to have dramatically changed. While 58-year-old Urban has been touring internationally with little attention or critical acclaim, Kidman has maintained a high-profile presence—and looked increasingly confident along the way.

Only days after news of the divorce broke, Kidman attended Paris Fashion Week as a guest of honor. Under the settlement, she retained the couple’s Nashville mansion and won the larger share of custody of their two teenage daughters.

At the Chanel show, she was photographed alongside Sunday Rose, now 18, and Faith Margaret, 15. Her sharply styled white shirt and jeans projected a clear message: I mean business.

A lively European summer followed for Kidman, including nights dancing at Ibiza raves. She told British Vogue that she would have dinner at 10.30pm before heading to a club at 1am, disguising herself with glasses and a short dark wig to avoid being recognized.

She also appeared alongside rhinestone-covered drag queens in a Troye Sivan music video and was photographed getting close to rumored new love interest Michael Reinstein, a private equity businessman, beside the pool at one of Portofino’s most exclusive hotels.

Then came Practical Magic 2, the sequel to the 1998 cult supernatural comedy, co-starring Sandra Bullock. Released earlier this month, the film exceeded the original movie’s entire US box office total within two weeks, giving Kidman and Bullock plenty of opportunities for a playful promotional run.

During a joint interview on influencer Jake Shane’s podcast on September 10, Shane read a letter from an anonymous listener who said she disliked her boyfriend’s music and wanted advice on what to do.

Bullock appeared delighted to set up the obvious joke.

“This is a tricky one… Nicole?” she teased, sending Kidman and Shane into laughter.

Kidman, to her credit, kept her response diplomatic and avoided making any further pointed reference to her musician ex-husband.

“Find something you like in it [the music]. Give him a compliment. Something! Give him a bone,” she advised.

Perhaps Kidman has no interest in publicly trying to outshine Urban because, by all appearances, she does not need to.

“Nicole has certainly come out of the divorce smelling like a rose. Her life looks like a fairytale; she has it all. She’s not just beautiful but wicked smart, so no one should be surprised that she handled the divorce so well. She is extremely savvy,” one source said.

Kidman’s appearance at this month’s Emmy Awards in Los Angeles was her first attendance at the ceremony in nine years.

Wearing Chanel once again, she prompted one observer to remark that she appeared to be “aging in reverse.”

Inside LA’s Peacock Theater, Kidman – sat in the audience – even managed to unintentionally to become the focus of the opening monologue, with host Mariska Hargitay recreating Kidman’s famous AMC advert, in which the actress memorably says: ‘Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this.’

Indeed, it seems everyone who’s anyone wants to be associated with Kidman.

Fast-rising Slovak pop star Adela has even released a new single titled ‘Nicole Kidman’ – it’s gone instantly viral and is currently No 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In August, singer Charli XCX described Kidman as ‘one of our last truly legendary movie stars.’

‘She came to my show in New York when I was on the Brat tour,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t believe she came. Like, the Nicole Kidman is at my show… what the f***?’

So, what’s the recipe to behind this public relations masterclass?

One insider said: ‘Nicole has played the post-divorce game very well by focusing on her family first, establishing herself as a solid single mom. And she is a great mom.’

The insider added that the girls ‘worship her and would do anything she asked’, claiming they are now ‘much closer to their mom than their dad’ – something Urban has reportedly found crushing.

It is a very different position to the one Kidman found herself in after her 2001 divorce from Tom Cruise, when their adopted children Isabella and Connor (now 33 and 31) chose to live primarily with their father – something insiders say remains a source of deep sadness for Kidman.

This time round, the settlement with Urban gives the actress 306 days a year with Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret, leaving their father just 59 days – or every other weekend.

In March, a source told the Daily Mail that Urban was feeling lost without his family.

Soon after their split, and before the divorce was finalized, Kidman took the girls to her native Australia for Christmas last year – leaving Urban behind in the States.

Then, in a cover interview for Elle Australia, aspiring model Sunday Rose credited mom Kidman as her ‘biggest inspiration in life’, failing to mention her father.

‘It’s like he doesn’t exist,’ an insider close to Urban complained to Australian magazine New Idea. ‘Keith doesn’t know what to say, but he’s trying to put on a brave front.’

Sources speaking to the Daily Mail at the time strongly rejected any notion that Kidman had turned her daughters against their father.

Instead, they argued that the girls are old enough to see the situation with their own eyes. Their father’s behavior since the divorce, the sources added, had been noted.

‘The girls are definitely Team Nicole – they’re in her corner, they’re hurt and angry on her behalf,’ a source said.

Urban has been linked to several younger women in the country music scene, including 26-year-old singer Karley Scott Collins, who has toured with him – though she has denied any romantic relationship.

‘Keith, surprisingly, has been the more emotional one post-divorce. I don’t think he ever thought he’d find himself divorced at 58. It’s kind of like he’s having a midlife crisis,’ another insider now says. ‘He’s Keith Urban. Girls are literally still throwing themselves at him, yet now he’s single.’

Another more sympathetic source, however, insisted Urban is hardly sitting at home strumming sad country chords into the void.

‘Keith is not suffering, let’s put it that way,’ the source said. ‘He’s had a successful tour thus far and is enjoying being back on the road. Don’t be surprised if he comes out with some sort of breakup ballad.’

Meanwhile, refusing to be drawn on reports of new love for Kidman with businessman Michael Reinstein, another insider said: ‘She’s certainly enjoying this time of discovery and what ‘single’ life looks like in this day and age. She’s been traveling, spending time with family, but now she’s back to work and full throttle, taking project after project. She might even be doing too much and overextending herself.

‘That was one of the problems why her relationship [with Urban] wasn’t sustainable – they both were spending time on the road and it wasn’t healthy for their marriage. They spent a lot of time apart.’

Representatives for Kidman and Urban have been contacted for comment.

A 72-year-old man who previously insisted he “did nothing wrong” after fatally striking former Nickelodeon star Kianna Underwood in Brooklyn has been arrested months after the alleged hit-and-run crash.

Michael Griffiths was arrested Tuesday and charged with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, as well as leaving the scene of an accident involving injury, according to the NYPD.

The arrest came eight months after Underwood, 33, was hit by two vehicles in Brownsville at about 6:50 a.m. on Jan. 16.

Surveillance video obtained by The Post showed Underwood crossing Watkins Street at Pitkin Avenue against the traffic signal when a Ford SUV moved across the double yellow line to pass a stopped vehicle.

The SUV struck Underwood in the crosswalk, throwing her across the intersection.

The former child actor was then run over by a second black-and-gray sedan, which dragged her “several hundred feet,” a police source told The Post at the time.

Underwood was found suffering from severe trauma near Osborn Street and Pitkin Avenue. Police and other sources said she was pronounced dead at the scene.

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In an interview with the New York Daily News in late January, Griffiths said he remembered hitting “something” while driving his 2021 black Ford Explorer. He nevertheless maintained that he “did nothing wrong.”

“At the time it was a little bit darkish. I was going to work…It felt like I hit something, and I pulled over and stopped,” Griffiths told the publication.

He said he stopped after the collision and watched as another vehicle struck Underwood and began dragging her.

According to Griffiths, he got out of his SUV and joined other bystanders in trying to signal the second driver to stop. That vehicle then sped away.

Griffiths said he left the area to take his medication because he “felt like I was going to faint when the incident happened,” he told the Daily News.

The elderly driver also said police impounded his vehicle. Records show the SUV had received 41 violations, including 25 speeding tickets.

Underwood appeared on the final season of the popular children’s sketch-comedy series “All That” in 2005. In recent years, she had struggled with homelessness and was often seen on the Brownsville streets where she was killed.

A Utah man who spent decades on death row for the killing of a police chief’s aunt has been released after prosecutors said newly analyzed DNA evidence ruled him out as the source of genetic material found on crucial evidence.

Douglas Stewart Carter, 71, was released on bail late Monday despite objections from the victim’s family. He must wear a GPS monitor while awaiting a new trial in the 1985 killing of Eva Olesen, who investigators believe was robbed before being tied up, stabbed and shot inside her Provo home on Feb. 27.

The judge also barred Carter from contacting any member of Olesen’s family.

The Utah Supreme Court ordered a new trial last year, citing misconduct by investigators.

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Carter has consistently maintained that he is innocent and says investigators coerced him into signing a confession.

Although no physical evidence connected Carter to the crime scene, jurors convicted him based on the confession and testimony from two witnesses who said he had bragged about killing Olesen. Both witnesses later recanted their statements.

DNA testing received Sept. 22 excluded Carter as a possible match to blood found on a doorknob and genetic material recovered from the handle of the knife used to stab Olesen.

Judge Derek Pullan said the results further weakened the case against Carter, while noting that a jury could still determine that he killed Olesen.

“This is going to be a lot for him,” Carter’s son, Tyler Anger, said Monday as he waited for his father to be released.

Carter will stay at an extended-stay hotel near Anger, who was adopted by another family as an infant and did not learn of his father’s conviction until years later, according to Carter’s attorney, Neal Hamilton.

Hamilton said Carter will need therapy to cope with the effects of his lengthy imprisonment.

“If the state of Utah had their way, he would have been executed 15, 20 years ago before we discovered the misconduct,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton also called on prosecutors to dismiss the aggravated murder charge that remains pending against Carter.

A two-month retrial had been scheduled for next year, but county prosecutors withdrew a notice last week stating that they intended to seek the death penalty.

Utah County prosecutor Erwin Petilos told the judge Monday that revisiting Carter’s bail was “necessary and fair” while the state continues reviewing the remaining evidence.

Carter was living with his mother in Utah when Olesen was killed.

Court records show that Carter left Utah by April 1985 because he believed he was wanted in an unrelated assault case. Two months later, he was detained in Nashville, where he signed a confession during questioning by a Provo detective.

Carter said later that his confession was coerced, saying he falsely admitted to the crime after police repeatedly threatened him.

He was convicted and sentenced to death after a trial in which the defense called no witnesses to testify. Carter was sentenced to death again after a 1992 retrial, and courts in Utah later denied multiple appeals from Carter’s legal team.

In 2011, the two witnesses from Carter’s original trial were tracked down in Mexico, admitting they had been told to lie in court and had received cash and gifts from police in exchange for their testimonies. They said police told them not to disclose the payments and that police and prosecutors threatened them and their son with deportation if they did not implicate Carter in the killing.

More than a decade of legal fights ensued before the Utah Supreme Court stepped in last year and ordered a new trial, citing “multiple instances of intentional misconduct” by police and a prosecutor. A DNA analysis of the evidence was conducted in response to that order, and prosecutors said the results arrived last week, which excluded Carter from the crime.

Prosecutors declined to say whether they will use the DNA evidence to search for other suspects with matching DNA.

Attorneys for Carter, who is Black, have said witnesses saw a White man fleeing the crime scene and that an investigator suppressed evidence that could implicate other suspects, including the victim’s husband, Orla Olesen.

Prosecutors were close to filing charges against the husband, but a Provo police lieutenant urged them not to so he could continue investigating, according to the defense attorneys. Carter was then identified as a suspect, according to court documents.

Orla Olesen, who died in 2009, told police he found his wife dead in their home, partially undressed and with her hands tied behind her back.

Theresa Olesen, a daughter-in-law of Eva Olesen, said during the bond hearing on Monday that her family had “serious concerns” about Carter’s release.

“By golly we were hoping for a concrete match,” Olesen said of the DNA analysis. “It doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.”

“We just want justice for Eva. And if he had any part of it we want that to be known,” she added.

Massachusetts prosecutors have yet to decide whether Lindsay Clancy will face a second trial, as the lone juror who opposed an insanity verdict urged the public to remember the three “angels” who died.

The former labor and delivery nurse, 36, has remained in a psychiatric hospital since Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial in her case earlier this month.

Clancy appeared Tuesday in Plymouth County Superior Court wearing a short-sleeve blouse and her hair in loose waves. Her lawyers and prosecutors debated how to move forward in a case that has attracted international attention.

The hearing ended without a ruling from Sullivan. Instead, he ordered both sides to return on November 2 to discuss a possible trial date and several motions connected to Clancy’s first trial.

Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz told CBS Boston afterward that prosecutors have not determined whether to retry the mother of three over the strangulation deaths of five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan.

Cruz said his office is waiting for the court to resolve the pending motions, while continuing to prepare as if a second trial will take place.

“We’re doing a very thorough review right now,” Cruz said. “And we’re going to continue to do our job and make sure we do what’s best in the interest of justice and the interest of the three children.”

His remarks came hours after the juror who refused to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity spoke publicly. As her defense team challenges his conduct, he said he wanted attention returned to Clancy’s “three angels.”

“I know the whole focus has been on me, but we want to reel everything back and put the focus on the three angels—the ones who cannot speak for themselves, defend themselves or fight their battles. Those are Cora, Dawson and Callan,” Michael Desronvil said in a video statement broadcast by Fox News on Monday night.

Desronvil also thanked God for giving him the ability to love his daughter and expressed appreciation for the people who have supported him.

“Your prayers, your emotional support, your psychological support, are tremendous to my heart—I feel it, I sense it, I know it. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you,” Desronvil said.

Desronvil’s involvement in the trial was among several issues examined Tuesday, after defense attorney Kevin Reddington filed a motion seeking to dismiss the charges.

Reddington contended that Sullivan did not adequately question the holdout juror or investigate allegations raised by the jury foreperson before declaring a mistrial.

The defense attorney argued that a more detailed inquiry could have prevented the mistrial.

Reddington further maintained that trying Clancy again would violate double-jeopardy protections, and asked the judge to dismiss the case entirely.

Before Sullivan declared the mistrial, the jury foreperson sent two messages accusing the then-unidentified holdout of expressing reasonable doubt but refusing to apply that doubt under the law.

At the time, Reddington called for the holdout to be struck from the case or to at least face further questioning.

Judge Sullivan refused and hours later, when the jury returned deadlocked again, a mistrial was declared.

Desronvil has said through his attorney Edward Paltzik that he has ‘zero doubt’ about Clancy’s guilt, based on what he described as ‘mountains of evidence.’

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Outside the courthouse on Tuesday, Desronvil’s newly-appointed lawyer Heather O’Connor said she now opposes efforts by the defense team to further inquire about her client – including their request to access records from his cellphone in an apparent attempt to determine whether he was using it during jury deliberations, according to The New York Times. 

She also insisted Desronvil was honest when he filled out a jury questionnaire that asked him whether he had ever been arrested or charged with a crime.

Desronvil had been charged with a misdemeanor in 2021, after his wife claimed he grabbed her by the throat and threw her against a dresser.

But the charge was later dismissed, and O’Connor said it did not prevent him from serving on the jury.

She went on to say that her client just wants privacy for himself and justice for Clancy’s three children.  

‘He’s the only one being targeted here because his decision and his vote was different than everyone else’s. People should not have to worry – just as the commonwealth said – jurors should not have to worry about coming in and having them outed because they take a stance different than everyone else,’ she said.

The motion to investigate Desronvil was ultimately tabled, as was the defense motion to dismiss the case on double jeopardy grounds and a newly-filed motion from prosecutors requesting a gag order preventing Reddington from speaking out about the case.

Judge Sullivan said he will also take into advisement Reddington’s new argument in court that there is no evidence Clancy killed her children.

‘This entire case is based on speculation. Where is the admission? Where did she say that she did this?’ Reddington asked in court on Tuesday.

He noted there was no blood on Clancy’s socks after she cut herself and leaped from the bedroom window and claimed that when she woke from a coma, she had no memory of killing her children. Instead, she was simply told by police that she had killed her children despite there being issues with the timeline of that day, he argued.

‘It wasn’t even a horrendous investigation. There was no investigation,’ the lawyer claimed.

Because of the shoddy investigation, the state had no probable cause that she was even the perpetrator of the crime, he argued.

Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham branded his comments ‘laughable,’ saying this was the first time the defense had made this claim.

The defense team had previously said that Clancy admitted to killing the children, but argued at her first trial that she should be found not guilty of murder or manslaughter because she was suffering from post-partum psychosis at the time.

But Reddington said outside the courthouse that the argument Clancy did not kill her children is ‘not new rocket science by any means.

‘It’s the fact that they cannot prove probable cause,’ he argued.

Reddington further claimed there is not sufficient evidence to prove the 36-year-old is criminally responsible for the killings.

In an insanity case in Massachusetts, the state must prove someone is criminally responsible through two points: whether the person was suffering a mental defect or disease at the time, and, if they were, whether they could still control their actions or conform to the law despite this mental illness. 

Because the state failed to show evidence to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, Reddington argued, the judge must enter a finding of not guilty on all charges.

Firing back, Buckingham argued that a defendant who suffers from mental illness can commit crimes and still be criminally responsible.

Police descended on the gated-community home of Candice Jang, the estranged wife of slain New York Times technology executive Jonathan McKinsey, on Tuesday night. Multiple officers were seen entering the residence while Jang’s parents remained jailed in connection with the fatal shooting.

Video recorded Tuesday showed officers arriving at a group of townhomes inside the community at about 7 p.m.

The officers repeatedly knocked on the door before someone opened it from inside.

Police then entered the residence one at a time and left by approximately 9 p.m.

No arrests were reported during the operation, and officers did not remove any property from the home.

The search came days after McKinsey, 40, was allegedly shot and killed in Northern California. His elderly Chinese in-laws, Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77, have been accused in the case.

According to police, the shooting occurred around 3 p.m. Saturday in the parking lot of Dublin Sports Grounds.

Witnesses told investigators that Zhang and Chen allegedly fired at McKinsey in succession.

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The New York Times confirmed McKinsey was the victim. He had joined the newspaper in 2023 and served as its head of engineering for games player experience.

At the time of his death, McKinsey and Jang were involved in a contentious custody dispute concerning their children.

Court records reviewed by The Post indicate that Alameda County prosecutors charged McKinsey with two misdemeanor counts of child abuse in 2025.

In a restraining-order filing against Jang, McKinsey stated that Chen had visited the couple in 2023 to care for their children.

Other court documents say the grandmother accused of fatally shooting her transgender New York Times executive son-in-law claimed he had influenced her grandson to wear his sister’s dresses.

Lovell Garner, McKinsey’s cousin, told The California Post that relatives were still trying to come to terms with the killing.

“Well, it’s all still pretty fresh for me still,” Garner said. “So far, everyone in my immediate family is completely shocked. It seems obvious that they were done with him since they killed him. Not sure what would make them do something that extreme.”

Zhang and Chen remain in custody as authorities continue investigating McKinsey’s death.

A Venezuelan man wounded by an ICE officer after a vehicle chase in Austin earlier this month is facing federal charges, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Wilber Rafael Garces-Perez is accused of assaulting, resisting, obstructing and interfering with a federal officer.

Federal prosecutors allege that Garces-Perez, 28, ignored ICE agents’ orders to leave his vehicle during a targeted traffic stop, then sped away and hit an officer in the torso with the driver’s-side mirror.

If convicted, Garces-Perez could receive a federal prison sentence of up to 20 years, according to the DOJ.

The criminal complaint says officers noticed Garces-Perez’s vehicle outside a restaurant and checked its license plate. They determined that an immigration judge had issued a final removal order against him before attempting to pull him over.

The complaint describes conflicting accounts of whether the vehicles collided during the stop. One officer told investigators that there had been no contact, while Garces-Perez said an ICE SUV caused a crash as it moved to stop him.

Garces-Perez handed over his driver’s license during the initial interaction, according to the complaint.

Officers characterized the first part of the encounter as “pleasant and not aggressive.” But after they directed Garces-Perez to put the car in park and get out, body camera footage allegedly shows him suddenly rolling up the window and driving off.

Garces-Perez later acknowledged to federal investigators that he disobeyed the order to exit and drove away, the complaint states. Investigators read him his Miranda rights in Spanish, and he said he understood them before agreeing to answer questions without a lawyer present.

As Garces-Perez fled, the driver’s-side mirror struck an ICE officer in the torso, prosecutors allege.

ICE agents then followed him through business districts and residential neighborhoods, using emergency lights and sirens during the pursuit, according to the complaint.

The body-camera-wearing officer reportedly lost sight of Garces-Perez and the other ICE agent while seeking assistance from a Texas Department of Public Safety dispatcher. The complaint says he then turned off his camera. The second officer, who fired the shot, did not have a body camera.

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The second officer later contacted his partner and said Garces-Perez had tried to hit him with the vehicle. The officer then fired his service weapon, according to the complaint.

Garces-Perez was hit in the upper back, the complaint says. He later told investigators that the ICE SUV struck his vehicle and spun it around. He also said that after the shooting, the officer opened his door, took the keys from the ignition and instructed him to stay inside while waiting for an ambulance.

Disputes have also emerged over the circumstances of Garces-Perez’s immigration case.

Fox News previously reported that his attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, argued the removal order was issued after a hearing notice went to an outdated address. She said Garces-Perez had already updated his address with the immigration court.

ICE has rejected claims about his immigration status, stating that his employment authorization expired in 2025. The agency also emphasized that a work permit alone does not provide lawful immigration status.

His attorney has said Garces-Perez remains seriously ill and has a bullet lodged in his body while being held at an ICE detention facility.

Lincoln-Goldfinch, responding to the criminal complaint in a social media post, called for DHS to release the body camera footage.

“The criminal complaint also provides another critical piece of information: one of the officers involved in the incident had a body camera that was turned off at some point during the pursuit. We have not seen that footage. DHS must release the body camera footage immediately and provide full transparency to the American public,” Lincoln-Goldfinch wrote.

“He is now facing proceedings in both a federal criminal case and his federal immigration habeas case. We are working through what these developments mean, and we will share additional information as we are able.”

DOJ said Garces-Perez made his initial appearance in federal court Tuesday.

A detention hearing is scheduled for Oct. 2.