‘THE MOMENT NICOLE SENT ME TO REHAB’
Keith talks Nicole’s intervention, their love notes and giving the kids a ‘normal’ life
They are known as one of the most rock-solid partnerships in showbiz, having been married for almost 12 years. Now, in one of his most revealing interviews ever, country music superstar Keith Urban has disclosed how wife Nicole Kidman saved his life— and their marriage—by forcing him into rehab in 2006, shortly after they wed. Speaking with Andrew Denton for Seven’s Interview, the New Zealand-born, Queensland-raised and Us-based charttopper said it was Kidman, 51, who encouraged him to check into a Nashville rehabilitation facility just four months after their Sydney wedding and days before his 39th birthday. “My wife put an intervention together; a divine intervention,” Urban, 50, told Denton from the Shoreline Amphitheatre where he is one month into his Graffiti U world tour. “It was love in action, the timing was absolutely divine.” Noting that, at the time, Urban had a Grammy award under his belt, a tripleplatinum album and a beautiful new wife in Kidman, Denton questioned why his addiction spiralled out of control.
“It had nothing to do with life being good or bad,” said Urban, who has sold more than 22 million records over his career. “I was an equal opportunity addict; I’d get high when it was sunny and high when it raining. It was something I should have dealt with many, many years before I met Nic.
“I tried to, but it just never took. I wasn’t ready. There were people that tried—it wasn’t through a lack of people trying to help me— I just wasn’t ready.”
Now sober for 12 years, the father of two says he will be forever grateful for Kidman’s love and unwavering support, and their family life together with daughters Sunday Rose, 10, and Faith Margaret, 7. “It’s unquantifiable,” he said of his life with Kidman. “I can’t put that into words. It just continues to open up life in a new way for me daily.”
The loved-up couple met at the G’day USA event in Los Angeles in 2005, where Kidman, Urban and fellow Australian actor Mel Gibson were being honoured. Although a friend passed on Kidman’s number, it took Urban four months to muster up the courage to call the Big Little Lies star, thinking she was “way out of his league.”
“I’m a kid from Brissy,” he told Denton. “I might have a wild imagination of possibilities in life but not in a million years did I think somebody like that would be interested in me. When I met her, there was an aura about her that was existing in a place that seemed so out of reach.”
Crediting “a conspiracy of angels”—or mutual friends—for encouraging the musician to follow his heart, he eventually plucked up the courage to call Kidman, who had split from husband Tom Cruise four years earlier, and the affable pair hit it off instantly. “We started talking and we talked and talked and talked,” he recalled. “It was effortless, this immediate shared history of our youth.”
“Even though she grew up in Sydney and I grew up in Brisbane,” he continued, “it was like we grew up side by side; we had all the same taste in music and food, environments and things you do. It was incredible.”
Having recently celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary, marking the occasion by sharing a clip from their wedding video on Instagram, the couple work hard to keep the romance alive and were recently seen enjoying a date night hand-in-hand in New York.
A romantic, Urban admits to writing love notes for his “foxy” wife every night he is away on tour, but credits Kidman with teaching him how to be a loving, engaged partner. “I have learned a lot about intimacy from Nic,” he admits. “It was one big thing lacking in my life until I met her. What I have learned from Nic, is when things go out of balance, you put it back in balance again. Balance is never achieved, it is just maintained, so when it goes out of whack, Nic and I are very, very tight and we just correct it.”
The pair is fiercely protective of their daughters’ privacy and work hard to give them a normal upbringing in Nashville. Urban won’t pose for photos with fans when he is with his girls, preferring instead to be “Dad” rather than a world famous country rock star, and the family are happiest singing—“shaun the Sheep” is his girls’ choice of tune at the moment—and hanging out around the piano together at home.
Urban has set up his tour schedule so he can do a show and then go home, and the most he will go without his family is three nights. Kidman and their girls will accompany Urban
“It was effortless, this immediate shared history of our youth”
when he returns Down Under for the Australian leg of his Graffiti U World Tour, where he will play Newcastle, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane and Melbourne in January and February next year. Urban told Newscorp he hopes to arrive in Australia a month before his shows so he can celebrate Christmas with Kidman and the girls, and introduce the kids to some of his favourite summer traditions.
Like Urban, Kidman says their marriage works because they love each other’s company above anything else. “We have a lot of fun together and we just choose each other,” Kidman told Parade. “If there is one person I can hang out with, it’s him and the girls and that’s it. We’ll get on planes and fly overnight rather than have a night apart. We will do anything to make it work.”