NICOLE & KEITH
‘We almost didn’t survive’
It’s turned out to be a love story more romantic than any movie she’s ever starred in, or any song he’s ever written. But things could have worked out very differently for Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, who are celebrating 15 years of wedded bliss this month.
Just four months after tying the knot in June 2006, Nicole realised Keith’s drug and alcohol use was out of control. So, she staged an intervention, with the assistance of several of his closest friends, to get the Kiwi-born country singer to seek help. Keith then spent three months in rehab at the Betty
Ford Centre. It was a very difficult time, says Keith, and they might not be celebrating so many years of marriage now if he hadn’t been able to overcome his demons.
“I caused the implosion of my fresh marriage,” he admits. “It survived, but it’s a miracle it did.”
Meanwhile, Nicole says, “At some point, you just have to say, ‘I love you and I’m here when you decide to do the work. If you don’t, then that’s it.”
Keith attributes his success in rehab to his wife. “For the first time in my life, I could shake off the shackles of addiction.
“Meeting Nic, and falling in love with Nic, and starting a relationship with
Nic became – I realise now in hindsight – my sobriety. That was how I was able to keep it together.”
Nicole, who called off a press tour at the time to give her husband her full support, says she learned a lot about being in a relationship with someone on the path to recovery from an addiction. “I’m more than willing to walk it with him. The two of us are very committed to our relationship.”
It was love at first sight for the couple when they met in 2005 at G’Day USA, an event celebrating Australians in the States. Yet neither Nicole – who’d divorced first husband Tom Cruise four years earlier – nor Keith thought the other one was interested. Shares Nicole, 53, “I remember thinking I had such a crush on him and he wasn’t interested in me.”
Keith, 53, remembers being smitten when he saw Nicole “gliding across the room”, but despite the fact they “really clicked”, it was another four months before he called the
Big Little Lies star and asked her out.
“He said he had other things to take care of… guys, right!” smiles Nicole.
After a month of dating, she knew he was The One when he turned up on her doorstep at 5am with flowers for her 38th birthday. “That was when I went, ‘This is the man I hope I get to marry’.”
A trip away to Woodstock, New York, cemented those feelings. “It was pretty
intense,” recalls Nicole. “I believed by that point he was the love of my life. Maybe that’s because I am deeply romantic or I’m an actress, or I have a strong faith as well, but I just believed, Oh, okay, here he is.”
While she had no qualms about marrying Keith a year later – they got hitched in a romantic ceremony in Manly, Australia, on June 25, 2006 – Nicole admits they still had a lot to learn about each other.
“I kind of like getting married and then getting to know each other. I know that it sounds incredibly strange, but to me it’s a more natural process.”
One of the things she quickly discovered about her new husband was his fondness for drugs and alcohol was in fact an addiction.
Keith had started using cocaine in the ‘90s after moving to Nashville to try to build up a singing career that had got off to a good start in Australia, where he was raised. He struggled for seven years to have a hit record and during that time became dependent on a variety of drugs, as well as alcohol. Two previous stints in rehab hadn’t worked and he knew it was now or never.
“I was going to lose it all,” Keith says. “It was like the ultimate fork in the road moment in my life and it was literally like you either get this right now or you are never, ever gonna get it right. This is your one shot.”
While the Grammy winner hated what he was putting Nicole through, he feels that the experience, for both of them, was meant to be. He explains, “We both met each other exactly at the right time. I feel there was something at work, bringing us together and then continuing to watch over us.”
With Nicole’s backing, he decided to go public about dealing with his addictions. At the time, Nicole said, “You can try and hide it, smoke and mirrors and all, but then how do I visit every weekend? It’s been a huge lesson for me, too.”
Looking back on that time, when their marriage nearly unravelled, she says, “I think we were two very lonely people who managed to meet at a time when they could open themselves to each other. We were a mixture of frightened and brave.”
Now, Keith can’t understate the effect Nicole has had on his life. “Meeting her and getting married wasn’t life-changing, it was life-beginning. It was literally, ‘Okay, life starts now’.”
The next phase of their lives started with the birth of their daughter Sunday Rose, 12, who was born in July 2008.
Sunday’s birth was something of a miracle – Nicole has had what she describes as a “rollercoaster ride with fertility”, and during her marriage to Tom had an ectopic pregnancy. They adopted two children, Isabella, 28, and Connor, 26, who chose to stay with their father after their parents divorced.
Two and a half years after Sunday arrived, Nicole and
Keith welcomed their second daughter, Faith Margaret, now 10, who was born to a surrogate. Announcing the birth, they said, “Our family is truly blessed, and just so thankful to have been given the gift of baby
Faith Margaret.”
Nicole, who was at Faith’s birth, says the experience was deeply moving. “Having given birth and then… seeing my child being born this way, the love I felt for our surrogate… she was the most wonderful woman to do this for us.
“We were in a place of desperately wanting another
child and this opportunity arose for us. I couldn’t get pregnant and we wanted another baby. I get emotional even talking about it because I’m so grateful to her.
“Anyone who knows the disappointment, the pain, and the loss that you go through trying and struggling with fertility… it is such a big thing.”
Her only regret is that she and Keith hadn’t met earlier so they could have tried to have more children. “If I could have had two more children with him, that would have been just glorious.”
Still, their small family unit is a very happy one, and Nicole has always put her husband and children first, often making work decisions based on her family’s needs. She has passed on job offers if they meant she’d be away from Keith and the girls for too long, and when Keith is touring, she rearranges her schedule where possible so they can join him on the road.
They try to go no longer than a week without seeing each other and say that is one of the keys to the success of their marriage. Sometimes that means going to great lengths to be together, but it is worth it, says Nicole, reflecting on the time Keith once flew to London from the US in the middle of a tour for the opening night of a play she was in.
“He flew 10 hours to come and be with me for the night, and then he flew back and did a gig. That for me is love in action. That’s extraordinary. But I would do the same for him and that’s what we’ve committed to as a couple.”
When they are apart, Keith leaves her a love letter for each night they’re separated and they talk on the phone several times a day.
“We don’t text each other, we don’t email each other either. We want to hear each other’s voice,” explains Nicole. “So, it’s about trying to keep it as intimate and personal as possible.”
She says the relationship is not perfect, but they are both determined to immediately iron out any issues that crop up.
“We don’t have all the answers, but the one thing we do know is that we will not jeopardise us,” she says.
“We just work at it,” adds Keith. “We love each other and we work at it. It’s beautiful work.” #
‘Meeting her and getting married wasn’t lifechanging. It was life-beginning’