Film star Kidman ‘always chooses love’

MUSICIAN Keith Urban said his wife Nicole Kidman has stuck to her mantra to “choose love” throughout her life and career, as she was awarded the AFI life achievement award.

After collecting the award from Oscar-winner Meryl Streep, Australian actress Kidman said “big love” had been the consistent theme throughout her life.

Pointing out Urban and her daughters Sunday and Faith, Kidman, 56, said: “Right there is the love of my life and the loves of my life. My daughters have never been anywhere publicly with me on a red carpet, tonight was their first night.”

Taking to the stage to honour his wife, Urban said: “She always chooses that phrase she lives by – choose love. She has the capacity to love like no other I’ve met.”

Four-time Grammy winner Urban recalled meeting Kidman at an event titled G’day LA in January 2005, saying he tried to “play it cool” but felt he was “meeting a real-life princess” who had a “truly otherworldly aura”.

Urban, 56, added: “I did manage to get her phone number on a tiny piece of paper, and I carried that number in my pocket for well over a week, I’d pull it out and look at it (and) put it back in my pocket. I was just scared, I was nervous to call her.”

He said: “We got married in June 2006, and barely four months into our marriage, my addictions that I had done really nothing about, blew our marriage to smithereens and I went into the Betty Ford Centre for three months.

“Four months into a marriage (and) I’m in rehab for three months, with no idea what’s going to happen to us. If you want to see what love in action really looks like, give that a whirl.

“Nic pushed through every negative voice.”

Kidman said she felt the presence of her late father during the ceremony, while her mother was watching the event live from Australia, and her sister was in the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.