What they’re worth: The Nicole Kidman-Keith Urban divorce in numbers

6 days ago 6

The end of what had seemed a fairytale marriage between Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban is terrible news for romantics, not to mention their children. But it’s potentially great news for lawyers, accountants and real estate agents.

As one of the highest profile celebrity couplings since, oh, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, a Kidman-Urban split signals a major tallying, and likely split, of assets. And those assets are considerable.

Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman’s split is sad for romantics, but a win for their lawyers.

Short of hacking the (former) couple’s bank accounts – something the late News of the World would no doubt have tackled with glee – we can only lick a finger and stick it in the air to gauge what the sums actually are. So in that spirit, here goes.

The website Celebrity Net Worth has been obsessing over the asset pools of The Rich and Famous since 2008, and claims to have assembled a “team of editors and industry insiders” to assess the accuracy of their best stabs, based on “data rooted in financial analysis, market research, and inside sources”. Yes, we have our doubts too, but it will have to do.

According to the site – which is the one most often cited by media outlets attempting to say what an individual celebrity is “worth” – Kidman’s career earnings from acting roles top $US350 million ($A530 million). (All sums are in US dollars unless otherwise stated.)

The site claims her biggest payday was for the 2005 movie Bewitched, based on the 1960s TV series, in which she played nose-wiggling suburban housewife witch Samantha Stephens. For that, she reportedly bagged a cool $17.5 million.

Kidman’s screen career has been notable, though, for mixing big-budget blockbuster fare with much leaner titles, such as Jonathan Glazer’s Birth (2004), a $20 million art-house film made at the peak of her fame and earning potential (and in which she does some of the very best work of her long and exceptional career).

Kidman in Jonathan Glazer’s 2004 film Birth, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.

That’s a pattern that continues today. In 2024, Kidman starred in the critically acclaimed but somewhat divisive Babygirl, another $20 million arthouse movie (it won her a swag of best actress awards, including in Venice, from the National Board of Review in the US, and an AACTA award at home). Her fee would have been at the lower end of her range, but her total earnings in 2024 reportedly came in at $31 million, thanks in no small part to her shift to television, where she reportedly commanded $1 million per episode for each of three series (The Perfect Couple, Lioness, Expats) she made.

But it hasn’t all been about the acting. Kidman has made a significant move into producing, with five films to her name (her first producer credit was on Jane Campion’s In The Cut in 2003) and dozens of episodes of high-end television, including Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, The Perfect Couple, The Undoing and more.

Her Blossom Films, founded in 2010 with Per Saari (a former business partner of Robert Redford), currently has two projects in production (including Scarpetta, a crime series based on Patricia Cornwell’s series of novels, with Kidman starring as the hard-as-nails forensics expert), and another 20 in development.

Kidman was reportedly paid $3 million for appearing in Baz Luhrmann’s four-minute Chanel ad in 2004.

Kidman has also, of course, had a string of commercial deals over the years that have brought in some serious coin.

Most famously, she was paid $3 million simply for appearing in Baz Luhrmann’s four-minute perfume ad Chanel No 5: The Film. That role was part of an overall $A12 million multi-year deal with Chanel, which she signed in 2003.

There have been lots of other endorsement deals over the years, though, with a string of luxury goods and beauty brands wanting to associate themselves with the cool glamour Kidman has personified (perhaps not in her BMX Bandits days, but certainly since the shift to Hollywood).

Neutrogena, Swisse, watch brand Omega, Jimmy Choo and Etihad Airways have all contributed to the coffers in the past. She currently has contracts with the Shiseido-owned skincare brand Cle de Peau Beaute and fashion label Balenciaga, and is the face of a $25 million ad campaign for the AMC cinema chain in the States.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, that all amounts to Kidman having a cool $250 million to her name.

Keith Urban is no slouch on the earning front either, with revenue from his record sales, live touring, TV roles (he was a coach on the 2011 season of The Voice Australia, for which he was rumoured to have been paid $1 million, and on American Idol from 2013 to 2016, where he reportedly peaked at $8 million for his final season).

He also has a guitar range (of which 42,000 units were sold via the Home Shopping Network in six months in 2013-14), and has had endorsements of his own, with telco AT&T, food brand Old El Paso, and accessories brand D’Addario. He also sold his music catalogue – including the rights to his 10 albums and 24 number 1 singles at that time – in December 2022 to Litmus Music for an undisclosed amount.

Celebrity Net Worth estimates that has all given Urban a net worth of $75 million.

Urban is believed to have earned $8million for his final season as a judge on American Idol.

The (former) couple will reportedly not seek child support payments or alimony as they go their separate ways. But presumably their significant property portfolio will require some sort of division.

According to this masthead, Kidman and Urban bought the historic Georgian mansion Bunya Hill at Sutton Forest in the Southern Highlands of NSW for $6.5 million in 2008 to serve as their Australian holiday home.

In Sydney, they own six apartments in the Point Latitude building at Milsons Point. A consolidation of two penthouses (bought for a combined $13 million in 2009 and 2012) has been their primary Sydney home.

They also own four more apartments in the same building, bought over several years for a total of $14.5 million.

Various properties owned by Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban.

In the States they own a string of properties, including the 12,000-square-foot mansion in Northumberland, a ritzy neighbourhood in Nashville, that has been their primary residence since they paid $3.5 million for it in 2008.

That same year, they paid a little under $5 million for a home in Beverly Hills, California, and in 2010, they bought a duplex in the West Chelsea district of Manhattan – complete with a car elevator – for $9.6 million.

Whatever that all tallies to in today’s terms is anyone’s guess.

The marriage dissolution plan filed on behalf of Kidman and Urban suggests they will seek a roughly equal division of their joint assets, while each will keep all the assets that are in their own names, including the copyrights and royalties for their artistic work.

That suggests they might be able to exit the marriage with a minimum of acrimony. Nonetheless, untangling it is likely to be costly, complicated and not a little painful.

And an absolute boon for those entrusted with the task.

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