Dressed down in leggings, sneakers and a ballcap, Nicole Kidman surfaced in Nashville Oct. 1 — just one day after she shocked fans and filed to end her 19-year marriage to Keith Urban. In photos published by the Daily Mail, the actress was spotted deep in conversation with her sister, Antonia, 55, while on a four-mile hike where at times, the 58-year-old Oscar winner laughed and gestured. At others, she linked arms with her sibling and pressed her hands to her heart.
It’s been shattered. But the sad truth, a source tells Star, is that Nicole’s marriage to the 57-year-old country music star was over months ago. Keith had already moved out and the two agreed to keep things quiet while the image-conscious pair “formalized logistics and figured out how to divvy everything up,” the source explains. Publicly, Nicole put on a brave face while spending the summer filming Practical Magic 2 in England alongside Sandra Bullock while Keith hit the road for his High and Alive world tour. But privately, she was grieving. “Nicole is absolutely devastated he chose to quit on the marriage,” says the source. “It’s like someone’s taken a sledgehammer to her whole world.”
Yet once news of their secret separation leaked Sept. 29, the Australian movie star wasted no time pulling the trigger. Less than 24 hours later, she filed for divorce in Davidson County, Tenn., citing irreconcilable differences. “Quite naturally she was very upset after news of the split broke,” says the source, especially as it was immediately followed by reports claiming the New Zealand–born musician was already seeing a younger woman in the music industry. “Nicole seized the narrative and blindsided him,” says the source. “She’s put up with a lot but there was only so much torture she was willing to tolerate.”
Another woman?
Rumors that Keith quickly moved on have left Nicole “absolutely disgusted,” says the source. “If he’s done this while still legally married, that would be utterly unforgiveable for Nicole. She would see it as the ultimate in disrespect and the ultimate betrayal.”
It’s not the first time he’s hurt her. Just four months after their 2006 wedding, she had to stage an intervention as Keith’s substance abuse spiraled, putting them in what Nicole told Vanity Fair was “a very, very, very bad, painful place.” He checked into rehab and got sober, but his addiction issues continued to haunt them. On Christmas Eve that same year, Nashville model Amanda Wyatt gave an interview to the Daily Mail claiming that she and Keith had been physically intimate after he started dating Nicole in 2004. “I feel sorry for Nicole. Keith cheated on her repeatedly with me, right up to just before they got married,” Amanda said. (Keith previously denied the claim.) She described the singer, whom she “rarely” saw sober, as a “deeply troubled man,” adding, “He told me he loved me. He told me he longed for a child. I sometimes wonder if he said the same thing to Nicole.”
Friends had cautioned Nicole, whose first marriage to Tom Cruise ended in 2001. “There were so many warning signs right from the beginning,” says the source. “But Nicole fell hard and truly felt she could fix him. And in many ways, she did, as he got clean thanks in no small part to all her support.” As Keith gushed as recently as a 2024 awards show, he “blew [his] marriage to smithereens” and a forgiving Nicole “chose love.”
Problems emerge
After that rocky start, they welcomed daughters Sunday Rose and Faith, now 17 and 14, and for a long time, they were happy. (The couple’s red-carpet PDA is legendary.) But things were sliding. “The truth is Keith started pulling away several years ago and they’ve been on a distant and downhill trajectory ever since,” says the source, confirming that with their busy work schedules, they were in many ways living separate lives. “They were spending less and less time together and that resulted in a major loss of intimacy.”
Nicole, meanwhile, was delivering plenty of intimate moments onscreen. In a 2024 interview with The Sun for her sexually charged movie Babygirl, she confessed, “There were times when we were shooting where I was like, ‘I don’t want to orgasm anymore.’ I don’t care if I am never touched again in my life. I’m over it,” admitting that she reached a state of “burnout.” It’s almost as if, says the source, “Keith felt like Nicole was playing mind games by telling the whole world she only performed for the camera.” (Keith was later accused of ending a Zoom interview when a DJ asked him how he felt watching his “beautiful wife” have love scenes with younger men like Zac Efron.)
Last fall, Nicole was rocked by the death of her mother, Janelle, at 84, just as she was promoting two lauded projects, Babygirl and The Perfect Couple. While her career was at a high point, Keith was launching a Las Vegas residency and promoting an underperforming new album, High, which had his lowest chart debut in 25 years. A successful gig hosting a country-focused CBS New Year’s Eve special gave him a boost, but ultimately “Keith had the worst year of his professional life in 2024,” says the source, “and Nicole started to see a very different and edgier side to him.” Keith may even have been ready to pull the plug then, says the source, “but he waited because he didn’t want to inflict more stress on Nicole right after she’d lost her mom.”
Their social media was telling. Keith last posted about Nicole after the Academy of Country Music Awards in May. Meanwhile, she posted about him to mark their 19th wedding anniversary in June — the same month they were last seen together. In July, public records revealed Nicole had applied for residency in Portugal, where they own a vacation home — but his name didn’t appear on any of her documents, the New York Post reported.
Keeping the peace
The same day Nicole was seen hiking in Nashville, aspiring model Sunday Rose hit the runway during Paris Fashion Week, walking the Dior show. While the split is “a heartbreaking situation for the whole family,” says the source, Nicole and Keith will continue to support their girls. “They agreed a long time ago to make sure they’re as minimally affected as possible.”
Following what Nicole once told ABC News was a “nightmare” divorce from Tom Cruise, 63, after a decade of marriage, their adopted children, Connor, 30, and Bella, 32, both Scientologists like their dad, lived with the action star. This time, Nicole’s children with Keith will live with her. A parenting plan filed with the court Sept. 30 — it was signed by Keith Aug. 29, and Nicole Sept. 6 — reveals the Oscar winner will have the girls 306 days a year while Keith gets them every other weekend for a total of 59 days. “Nicole is a real mama bear. She wouldn’t be looking to punish Keith, but she’s going to put the kids’ interests first,” the source says. “She believes this is a suitable reflection of how they should co-parent, and Keith has agreed, for now.”
A prenup dictates how their assets will be divided. With Nicole’s estimated net worth of $250 million and Keith’s reported at $75 million, “both of them have plenty of their own money so there’s little chance” the divorce will drag out. (Reports in outlets like the Daily Mail claiming there’s a “cocaine clause” — an agreement that awards Keith $900,000 for every year of marriage if he stayed sober — “isn’t something they’ve discussed with their friends or colleagues,” says the source. “As far as people know, it’s just a rumor.”) The hope on both sides, says the source, “is that they can settle this amicably and quickly.” Healing, though, will take longer. “There was no part of Nicole,” says the source, “that didn’t think Keith was her soul mate who she’d grow old with.”