By Marianka Swain
One of Hollywood’s longest-standing, and seemingly blissful, unions has come to an end: actress Nicole Kidman and country singer Keith Urban are reportedly separating after almost 20 years of marriage.
The news broke on Tuesday, but, according to a source who spoke to US tabloid news website TMZ, Kidman and Urban have been living apart “since the beginning of the summer”.
The couple shares two daughters: Sunday Rose, 17, and Faith Margaret, 14. Sources told TMZ that the separation was Urban’s decision, while Kidman, who did not want to split, has been trying to save their 19-year marriage.
Speculation is already rife about the possible causes – whether long working hours (especially Kidman’s) played a part, or a shifting power balance between their two careers.
Just like the domestic thrillers that Kidman now specialises in, such as Big Little Lies and The Perfect Couple, clearly there were issues lurking behind the glossy facade the pair presented to the world at film premieres and awards ceremonies.
In 2009, Kidman told Access Hollywood: “I want to be in love for the rest of my life. I want to be an old woman still married to Keith, and looking back going, ‘What a lovely, lovely journey together.'” However, that journey appears to have come to an end.
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Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s love story in pictures
A whirlwind romance
Kidman, 58, and Urban, 57, originally bonded over their shared Oceanic roots; Kidman is Australian and Urban, born in New Zealand, moved there when he was two years old. Kidman grew up in Sydney, while Urban spent his childhood in Queensland. The pair were introduced by actor Geoffrey Rush in January 2005 at G’Day LA, an Aussie promotional event held in Los Angeles.
Kidman was already a celebrated Hollywood actress when the pair met, having won an Oscar for The Hours in 2003, and had garnered as much attention for her personal life thanks to her marriage to Tom Cruise (the couple separated in 2001, after 11 years together). But it sounds like Urban initially held all the power.
Speaking to Ellen DeGeneres on her chat show in 2017, Kidman recalled: “I had such a crush on [Urban], and he wasn’t interested in me.” She added: “He didn’t call me for four months.”
Although it’s hard to imagine it now, at the time Urban was arguably the bigger and more bankable star in the US. After moving to Nashville in 1992, he had become a country music sensation, racking up number one hits on the US country charts with songs such as Somebody Like You and Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me.
However, Urban did eventually call Kidman, and the pair began a whirlwind romance. Kidman told Vanity Fair in 2013 that while she had found Cruise intoxicating, Urban was her “great love”.
She expanded: “I would probably say that two very lonely people managed to meet at a time when they could open themselves up to each other. We were a mixture of frightened and brave.”
On her 38th birthday, in June 2005, Urban turned up on Kidman’s New York doorstep at 5am with gardenias and surprised with her a trip to Woodstock, New York. “That is when I went, ‘This is the man I hope I get to marry,'” Kidman told People magazine in 2019.
She got her wish: the pair tied the knot in Manly, Australia, in June 2006, at a fairy-tale wedding attended by Antipodean A-listers Hugh Jackman, Baz Luhrmann, Russell Crowe and Naomi Watts, as well as Kidman’s two adopted children with Cruise, Isabella and Connor. Urban serenaded her with his song Making Memories of Us, and guests all went home with a silver Tiffany clock engraved with “A moment in time”.
‘A shocking amount of time apart’
The union was put to the test almost immediately. In October 2006, Kidman was forced to stage an intervention for Urban, who struggled with cocaine and alcohol addiction and subsequently checked into rehab for the third time. Urban told Rolling Stone in 2016: “I caused the implosion of my fresh marriage. It survived, but it’s a miracle it did.”
He gave Kidman credit for helping him “shake off the shackles of addiction”. Kidman also acted as a muse for Urban in his subsequent work – including, memorably, the line in his 2018 song Gemini “She’s a maniac in the bed / But a brainiac in her head”.
The couple welcomed their daughters in 2008 and 2011, and settled down in Tennessee (Kidman said in 2013 she had been “something of a gypsy” before the move, so was happy to relocate to the home of country music to benefit Urban’s career).
Kidman also explained to Vogue in 2015 that she could have “a real life” in Nashville. “I can write here. I can hike. I can take my kids to school.” She and Urban bought a £1.8 million (approx. $3.6 million) compound in 2007, before upgrading to a £2.6 million (approx. $5.3 million) mansion in a gated community in 2008.
However, the couple also acquired multiple other properties, including apartments in Sydney and Manhattan. Maintaining their Nashville domestic bliss, far from Hollywood, seems to have been increasingly challenging.
Kidman has been extraordinarily busy in recent years: since 2007, she’s racked up around 38 movies and 10 TV shows. That means spending weeks or months on end on location; this summer she rented a Hampstead mansion (once owned by Boy George) while filming the sequel to her 1998 film Practical Magic in London.
Kidman and Urban’s long periods apart reportedly drew comment in Australia. A source told local magazine Woman’s Day this month: “It is shocking how much time they’ve spent apart,” adding, “It’s like they both went their separate ways.”
Steamy sex scenes
Kidman has also taken on a number of roles that involve steamy sex scenes, such as in the 2024 erotic thriller Babygirl, which depicted her character’s affair with a much younger colleague (played by Harris Dickinson). Urban seems less than thrilled by that development.
In July, when Australian radio host Max Burford asked Urban what he thought about his “beautiful wife” sharing intimate scenes with “beautiful younger men like Zac Efron”, her co-star in the 2024 film A Family Affair, Urban abruptly ended the interview.
The 2017 Emmy awards offered a slightly awkward window into their marriage when Urban was photographed looking on as Kidman kissed her Big Little Lies co-star Alexander Skarsgard on the mouth.
However, it is Urban who, in 2006, was accused of being unfaithful. Model Amanda Wyatt told the Daily Mail that Urban had had an affair with her while dating, and becoming engaged to, Kidman. Wyatt said: “I feel sorry for Nicole […] He’s done it once and he will probably do it again.” Neither Urban nor Kidman ever commented on Wyatt’s claims.
A power imbalance
But there seemed to be fresh tension as recently as last year, as Urban reckoned with his changed status in the marriage: he had essentially become Mr Kidman, supporting his globally famous wife on various red carpets. Although he has continued to be successful in his industry, selling out arena gigs, winning country music awards and also judging on reality TV shows including The Voice and American Idol, it’s a far cry from Kidman’s global fame.
Speaking to The Times last year, Urban refused to answer directly a question about whether he minded playing second fiddle to his wife. He later took issue with the same interviewer asking him about Kidman, rather than his own career, snapping, “I’m not going to talk about her.”
Those problems appear to have dramatically escalated: a source told TMZ this week that Urban has bought his own residence in Nashville and moved out of the family home.
Last year, while promoting her Netflix series The Perfect Couple, Kidman told E! News that there is no such thing, explaining: “Anything that’s presented as perfect… forget it.” When asked if she and Urban were a “perfect couple”, as sometimes referred to in the media, Kidman replied: “I don’t see any of that.”
Now that flawless image is no more. The next time she plays a devastated wife facing the end of her enviably long marriage in a drama, Kidman might have personal experience to draw upon.
© Telegraph Media Group Limited 2025
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