In this talk, we are concerned with an initial and boundary value problem to the three-dimensional nonhomogeneous nematic liquid crystal flows with density-dependent viscosity and vacuum. Combining delicate energy method with the structure of the system under consideration, the global well-posedness of strong solutions is established, provided that initial mass and initial gradient of orientation field are both suitably small. In particular, the initial velocity can be arbitrarily large. Furthermore, the exponential decay rate of the strong solution is also obtained.