NICOLE KIDMAN AND RUSSELL CROWE TAKE REFUGE ON SAME ROMANTIC ISLE

July 12, 2001Jul 12, 2001, 11:00 PM GMT+1

Their decision to holiday at the same time in one of the world’s most romantic resorts has fuelled speculation over the nature of the relationship between Tom Cruise’s estranged wife Nicole Kidman, 34, and her fellow Antipodean, Russell Crowe, 37.

Both are currently guests on the super-exclusive, privately owned island of Wakaya, in the Fijian archipelago. The stars flew in by private jet, but arrived separately. Nicole, who was accompanied by her two adoptive children with Tom, on Friday; Russell three days later. Since the demise of the Moulin Rouge star’s ten-year marriage to Cruise, she and Gladiator actor Russell have often been linked together. Friends for years, they first met back in 1989 on the set of the movie Flirting when she was the star and he a studio technician.

Their subsequent liaison was a short-lived affair, but New Zealand-born Russell became a member of what Nicole refers to as the Gum Tree Mafia. Crowe has made no secret of his admiration for the flame-haired actress, inevitably fuelling speculation that one of the songs on the latest album from his band Thirty Odd Foot Of Grunts is about her. Entitled Somebody Else’s Princess, it tells of the heartache of loving someone already involved with another person. Giving nothing away, the beefy Russell has said the track is about “a combination of different people”.

According to the lyrics, the woman in the song, who has “red hair and deep blue eyes”, has “got me in mess, so deeply embedded in somebody else’s princess”. The hideaway chosen by the pair could not be one more conducive to romance. Thatched roof guest villas each have a four poster bed, a deluxe bathroom and a private strip of beach far from prying eyes. Visitors, who are flown to the island in the owner’s private six-seater plane and allocated at least five employees to cater to their needs, are greeted upon arrival with Taitinger champagne, tropical fruit and freshly-baked ginger cookies.

To make sure there are no worldly distractions, there are neither televisions nor telephones in the villas. It is also possible to be married on the island.

Nicole and fellow Antipodean actor Russell Crowe are old friends, who enjoyed a brief fling back in 1989. The question on everyone's minds now is whether that old fame has been rekindled following the Moulin Rouge star's estrangement from husband Tom Cruise

If the rumours of a romantic relationship between Nicole and Russell prove true, it will be particularly difficult for Cruise, who counted the Gladiator star among his closest friends

Although they are holidaying on the same isle, the two stars arrived separately. Nicole flew in three days before Russell with her children Isabella and Conor

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