Keith Urban turned 57 on Saturday surrounded by the love of his wife and young family. Yet his life hasn’t always been so domestically blissful as for years he battled an addicton with the twin demons of alcohol and drugs.
Happily, Keith had an angel alongside him fighting these demons in the shape of wife Nicole Kidman. With her help he got clean and he has since proved himself to be a loving husband and devoted father to kids Sunday and Faith.
Here we step back in time to explore how Keith’s addictions both began and were beaten, and how subsequently he has warmed hearts worldwide through his incredible music and dedication to his family.
Keith endured a turbulent childhood growing up in Australia
Keith’s early struggles with abuse and addiction
The singer was born in New Zealand before his family relocated to Brisbane, Australia, when he was two. Keith had a difficult childhood thanks to his father’s alcoholism and the physical abuse he endured in the name of “discipline”.
Nicole shared a small insight into Keith’s upbringing with Glamour UK in 2021: “He grew up on a farm, literally in a shed,” she said. “They didn’t have bedrooms. Four of them lived in a shed that subsequently burned down.”
The father of two shared with Rolling Stone in 2016 that his father was a “physical disciplinarian” who never showed affection or love. “The way he disciplined me, he seemed to have forgotten about it as he got older. I don’t think he was in denial; he genuinely had no recollection. ‘Hitting you? I never did that!'” he said in the interview.
Although Keith managed to break free of his father when he moved to Nashville and started his career, he couldn’t escape his genetics. “My dad was an alcoholic, so I grew up in an alcoholic house, and it took me a long time to believe I was wired the same,” he told The Times in 2022.
According to the American Addiction Center, the chance of becoming an alcoholic rises to 50% if there is a family history of the disease.
Keith became addicted to cocaine and alcohol during his early years in Nashville and checked himself into rehab well before meeting Nicole in 1998.
Keith went to rehab in 2006, just months after marrying Nicole
Nicole’s intervention
Just months after marrying the love of his life in 2006, Keith was drowning in addiction with no visible way out; that is until Nicole staged an intervention that forced him to understand how his alcoholism was hurting his loved ones.
“That’s the point right there where she really should’ve just walked,” Keith told Oprah of Nicole’s strength and conviction that day. “I’m just so glad she didn’t, and she made a decision to turn around and initiate ultimately this intervention and it was done in such a way that the love in that room at that moment was just right. I was like, ‘Put the cuffs on, let’s go.'”
He underwent treatment at the Betty Ford Center and released a statement in October of that year apologizing for the actions that led to that moment. “I deeply regret the hurt this has caused Nicole and the ones who love and support me,” he wrote. “One can never let one’s guard down on recovery, and I’m afraid that I have.”
The father of two shared that Nicole had “saved” him by staging an intervention
The country singer and his wife have been open and honest about how this dark time affected their marriage, with Nicole revealing to Vanity Fair that they were in a painful place but managed to pull through together.
“I hope that gives some people some hope who may be in the same place,” she told the publication. “And that’s enough said. Anything else is overindulgent and unnecessary right now. And I think it jinxes it, in a way, and that’s why I don’t go on about my enormous feelings for this man.”
The father of two maintained to Rolling Stone that Nicole saved his life and that she gave him something to work for; he was “spiritually awoken with her” and finally “could shake off the shackles of addiction”.
Keith has been sober since leaving rehab in 2006
Overcoming addiction
Since getting sober, Keith has come to terms with how his past affected him and how important it is for his family that he stays well.
“It took me a long time to get sober,” he said Rolling Stone Australia in 2021. “Took me a long time to recognize my alcoholism. A long time because I didn’t drink like my dad, so I compared everything to him.”
“So it just took a long time for me. But I was able to finally make the right choice in my life, that I wish my dad would have made.“
Thankfully, Keith could lean on Nicole, as well as his music, to see him through. “I’m glad it didn’t change anything about my music,” he told The Times. “I wrote plenty of hit songs while drunk. I wrote plenty sober. I feel lucky it hasn’t defined my creativity.”
He blended the two loves of his life when he wrote a song in tribute to Nicole in 2009, thanking her for guiding him through his darkest times. The song, aptly named “Thank You”, explores the depths of Keith’s addiction with lyrics like “There were nights where I was sure / I wouldn’t see the morning sun” until it pivots to gratitude for Nicole. “I thank you for my life / And I thank god for grace and mercy / And that you became my wife,” the song continues.
Ultimately, Keith came to terms with his “allergy” to alcohol, as he calls it, joking to The Times that when he drinks, he tends to “break out in cuffs”. With the arrival of his two children with Nicole and his sobriety mission, the 56-year-old was finally on a brighter path.
The singer shares daughters Sunday and Faith with Nicole
Becoming a devoted dad and husband
Keith turned his life around to become the best husband and father possible. Sunday, born in July 2008, and Faith, born in December 2010, are the apples of his eye, and he has tried to set a good example for them their whole lives.
“I’m trying to set a good example for the kids, but I still don’t know if I’m getting it right,” he told The Sun in 2022. “I have made so many mistakes, but you have to work out what works for you. My message to them is always to do whatever they are passionate about; I don’t care as long as they work hard to achieve it.”
He shared that his girls inspire him in all aspects of his life, explaining to ABC News that he didn’t think he would ever get to be a parent. “It’s an incredible feeling,” he said.
The singer shared that his girls inspire him in life and in music
As for Nicole, he makes sure to show his daughters just how much he loves his wife so they understand what they deserve from their future partners.
“We’re very, very tight as a family unit, and the children are our life, but I know the order of my love,” he said to Australian Women’s Weekly. “It’s my wife and then my daughters. I just think it’s really important for the kids.”
“There are too many parents who start to lose the plot a little and start to give all their love to the kids, and then the partner starts to go without. And then everybody loses,” he continued.
“As a kid, all I needed to know was that my parents were solid. Kids shouldn’t feel like they are being favoured. It’s a dangerous place.”
BY KATIE FITZPATRICK
