"Blew our marriage to smithereens”: Keith Urban's emotional admission
Keith Urban has opened up about the rocky start to his marriage with Nicole Kidman in an emotional speech in front of the Hollywood elite.
During his speech at the 49th AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Nicole Kidman, which was filmed in April but aired over the weekend, Urban spoke candidly about their relationship and the early days of their marriage, when Urban spent time in rehab.
Taking to the stage, he said, “We got married in June 2006, and barely four months into our marriage, the addictions that I had done really nothing about blew our marriage to smithereens.”
“I went into the Betty Ford Center for three months,” Urban continued.
“Four months into a marriage, and I’m in rehab for three months with no idea what was going to happen to us.”
“If you want to see what love in action really looks like, give that a whirl,” he said.
“Nic pushed through every negative voice — I’m sure even some of her own — and she chose love. And here we are tonight 18 years later.”
Urban went on to say his wife has “the capacity to love like no one I’ve ever met”.
He went on to recall how they met at an event in 2005, where he got her digits on a “tiny piece of paper” that he carried “in his pocket for well over a week.”
“I was scared,” the singer recalled. “I was nervous to call her and as prone as I might have been at the time to all sorts of delusional thinking, even I couldn’t stretch that to think that this extraordinary woman would ever see anything in a guy like me.”
Urban finally plucked up the bravery to ring Kidman, and he said that when he did, it felt like they had “known each other our whole lives.”
“It turned out that this mystic creature was really just a wide-eyed, vivacious giddy girl from the Sydney suburbs and despite being born in Honolulu, she was utterly Aussie through and through,” he said.
“The thing about Nic, she loves life,” Urban added. “I’ve actually never met anyone who has such a passion for being alive. She knows the importance of expressing feelings as well. I wasn’t raised like this at all so our girls are very lucky to be learning from you, baby. I’m learning too.”
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