Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s separation is the hardest, truest love story of all

1 week ago 4

Opinion

September 30, 2025 — 7.30pm

The first sign something was wrong – or right, depending on your world view – was my phone blowing up early Tuesday morning. Had Powderfinger reunited? No. First text: “PSA! Keith Urban is SINGLE!”

Next: “Up for grabs: a bloke who can do your hair.”

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban in an anniversary post from her Instagram.

From my husband: “Darling. First that famous axeman checked you out at the Melbourne Show, now Keith Urban’s back on the market. Good week for you.”

And on it went. People who know I’ve long wanted Keith Urban to be my loveling and private troubadour were reacting to the news he and Nicole Kidman had seemingly split after 19 years of marriage.

My hand actually flew to my mouth, cartoon style. And there was a tiny moment of something akin to triumph – “Aha! We knew that red carpet neck kissing looked fake.” I mean, he never should have repeatedly, publicly called her baby girl.

But once the news sank in, the overwhelming feeling was disbelief. No way could Nicole and Keith be over. They were Australia’s golden couple, stars who’d made career-induced time apart, duelling celebrity egos and the raising of daughters look cinchy.

It’s funny how it still shocks us when a “super” couple – that one in the group you all think is rock-solid – breaks up.

We probably project that ideal even more onto stars because what we know of their real life is edited. We don’t see the silent treatments, the small slights that fester, the boredom over relentless domesticity. We’re not privy to the grinding logistics: who’s stacking the dishwasher, who’s carrying the resentment of being the steady one.

Every marriage has its ledger of unglamorous tasks and unpaid emotional bills. Strip away the gowns and guitar solos and the glowing red carpets, and maybe Keith and Nicole’s home life looked a lot more like ours than we knew.

But what we did see with Nicole and Keith was they were each other’s redemption story, hers from the PR wreckage of divorce from Tom Cruise, his from addictions that threatened to kill everything that was good.

Before Kidman, “I didn’t have relationships. I took hostages,” Keith told The Boot in 2016. “I didn’t know anything about love. I didn’t know anything about marriage. I didn’t know anything about self-sacrifice. I didn’t know anything about taking care of a woman.”

Someone in their circle once told me that when she stayed at their place, bedtime was early. Keith was not long out of rehab, so the couple avoided long chatty nights that invited imbibing.

It wasn’t a punish, said the friend: “They’d slink off smirking, and you could see they couldn’t wait to get their hands on each other. They were really in love.”

Still, Nicole was less willing to carry the weight of being part of an ostensibly faultless couple. Last year she said there’s no such thing as a “perfect” marriage: “There’s no perfect anything.”

That was brave and rang true. Because seeing deep faults in something, remembering deep hurts and loving someone anyway is a stronger relationship than a glossy fairytale where truth is skirted around lest it blows up the whole thing.

Apart from a half-joking, futile yearning for her husband, I felt a kinship with Nicole. I reported on her wedding to Keith, blagging my way into his bucks’ night and having a dumb fight with one of his pals over his bad jewellery.

Nic and I even had a private moment on the day. When her bridal car stopped at lights en route to the church, I was on the corner eating a Chinese takeaway, waiting for my own ride to the service.

Our eyes met. She looked incredible. So happy. You lucky bitch, I thought.

More, we both had the pain and privilege of marriage to addicts. We both know the secret to surviving that: you can madly love someone through it, but you can’t fix them. They need to save themselves. Nicole, respect.

If she and Keith are truly done, maybe that’s the hardest, truest love story of all. That sometimes saving yourself means walking away.

Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.

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