Inside Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s marriage: From time apart to a stint in rehab

The pair first met at the G’Day USA Gala in 2005, where Nicole gave Keith her number and waited for a call for four months. 

He eventually swallowed his pride and invited her on a date; they went on to get engaged in May of the following year and married in June 2006 in Nicole’s hometown of Sydney, Australia.

Nicole and Keith have weathered their fair share of hardships in their marriage, particularly in the first year of being husband and wife. 

Just four months after they tied the knot, the actress staged an intervention for Keith after he had been struggling with substance abuse issues. 

 “My dad was an alcoholic, so I grew up in an alcoholic house, and it took me a long time to believe I was wired the same,” he told The Times in 2020. 

Nicole encouraged her husband to check into rehab and sober up, which changed his life and led him to a full recovery. “I was very, very blessed to have Nic call an intervention on me,” Keith told The Daily Telegraph, adding that he’d “caused the implosion of my fresh marriage”. 

Although Nicole already shared two children, Isabella and Connor, with her ex-husband, Tom Cruise, she was ready to become a mother for the third time and welcomed Sunday Rose with Keith in July 2008. 

“We feel immensely blessed and grateful to be given this beautiful baby girl,“ they said in a statement. “She’s an absolute delight.“

“We want to thank everybody that has kept us in their thoughts and prayers,“ they continued. “We feel very blessed and grateful that we can share this joy with all of you today.”

Over two years later, in December 2010, the loved-up couple welcomed their second child together, Faith Margaret, and released a statement after her birth expressing their joy. 

“No words can adequately convey the incredible gratitude that we feel for everyone who was so supportive throughout this process, in particular our gestational carrier,“ they gushed.

Keith has been a steadfast support to Nicole through the loss of both of her beloved parents. 

After her father’s death in 2014, Keith performed ‘Amazing Grace‘ at his funeral, and when her mother passed away suddenly in 2024, he postponed a performance on Today and revealed that their grief was “up and down“ and came “in waves”. 

 “He has been so good to me for nine years, but for the last month, which has been a really tough time for me, he’s been amazing,“ Nicole said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in the wake of her father’s passing.

“To have my husband just step up that way, it makes me cry. We all go through hard times in our lives, but to be literally carried by your partner, and physically, at times, because I was so devastated. I’ll do anything for that man.”

Nicole and Keith lead hectic lives as some of the most talented people in their industries. While Keith travels on long tours for much of the year, Nicole is often away filming or on press tours for her latest releases. 

The couple always ensures that one of them is around to parent Sunday and Faith; Keith is also gearing up for a Vegas residency to be closer to his family. “It’s not all that different from touring, minus the traveling,“ he said on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

The Babygirl actress gushed about her husband’s dedication to their tight-knit brood. “I have an incredible husband who is so willing to get on planes and fly places, even if it’s for a night,“ she told DuJour. 

“I had an opening of [a play] three nights ago, and he’s in the middle of a tour in the States. I said, ‘It’s too much for you to have to fly all the way back, don’t worry,‘ and he said, ‘I’m flying.‘”

She continued: “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.”

The lovebirds share a strong partnership and offer career advice for each other as well as support for their achievements. 

“She hears everything I do, especially if I’m writing an album,“ Keith said on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

“What I’ve learned is when I play her something, I’m obviously interested in her reaction, but I’m also really interested in how I feel when I’m playing it for her or anybody else. I’ve learned to trust my reaction.” 

Keith is always by his wife’s side for her red carpet events, excited to celebrate her success. For her part, Nicole has frequently performed duets with him in the past and enjoys supporting him on his tour. 

The Aussie natives share a $50 million property portfolio that boasts homes in Nashville, Sydney, New York and Beverly Hills. 

Their family is based in Nashville, thanks to Keith’s country music career. Nicole admitted to Harper’s Bazaar that she prefers the quieter life in the Tennessee city to the hustle and bustle of Tinseltown. 

“Keith and I are very good at immediately clicking off because we have a really good life in Nashville that’s very simple, quiet and nourishing because we’ve made it like that,“ she said.

The secret to their marital bliss is simple, according to Nicole. “I think it’s knowing that you have to keep contributing to what we call the ‘us‘,“ she told People. “You go, ‘Does this work for us?‘ When you make an us, it’s yours together — that’s what you create.”

For Keith, having a best friend and a wife in one is irreplaceable. “She’s my best friend. I’ve never had anybody on the planet that knows me as well as she does,“ he told People.

“I would love to have been worthy of somebody like Nic, but I was a long way from it when we met. Somehow, we just found there was love there, real love. I literally just feel like the luckiest guy on the planet.“