Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban were “working” on their marriage years before splitting up, according to the Oscar-winning actress.
Kidman, 58, opened up about their partnership in an interview for the September 2021 issue of Harper’s Bazaar, telling the magazine, “We’re always working through stuff, but it’s very much love-based, so there’s an enormous amount of give and take. I want him to have the best life he can have, and he responds the same way.”
She added, “We really love parenting together.”
A source confirmed to Us Weekly on Monday, September 29, that Kidman and Urban had separated nearly two decades after exchanging vows in Australia, where both grew up.
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban Split After Nearly 20 Years of Marriage
Kidman first encountered Urban, 57, at a Los Angeles gala circa 2005. The country singer caught her eye while giving a speech where he spoke about his mother. Kidman brought her sister, Antonia, to the event.
“Well, it doesn’t get much better than that,” Kidman quoted Antonia saying of Urban.
“Yeah, but he’s not gonna be interested in me,” she replied.
The Moulin Rouge! star, who had divorced Tom Cruise four years prior, told Harper’s Bazaar that Urban “actually wasn’t that interested in me at the time — which he now says is not true; he was just sort of intimidated.”
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban: A Timeline of Their Relationship
Kidman recalled that four months after that gala, she and Urban connected on the phone due to the efforts of several “angels” who worked “behind the scenes, helping us hook up.”
Laughing, she confessed, “Yeah. I was really, really into him. He took a little time. And he’s like, ‘That is so incorrect, Nicole.’”
The following year, they tied the knot during an oceanside ceremony. In July 2008, they welcomed daughter Sunday Rose, born in 2008. Sunday’s sister, Faith Margaret, arrived via surrogate in December 2010. (Kidman is also mom to daughter Isabella and son Connor, whom she adopted with Cruise.)
Speaking to Harper’s Bazaar, Kidman addressed the media frenzy over her 2001 breakup with Cruise, 63, noting that her heart became “wary” following the end of their union.
“I was young. I think I offered it up?” she said. “Maybe I’ve gotten a bit more trepidatious, but I’m always trying to be as open as possible. I just prefer to live in the world that way. I’m wary at times, and I’ve been hurt, but at the same time I much prefer a warm approach rather than a prickly shutdown approach. My husband, Keith, says that when he met me, he said, ‘How’s your heart?’ And I apparently responded, ‘Open.’”
