Nicole Kidman & Keith Urban Dealt With Split Rumors Long Before Their Breakup

Reactions to Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's separation flooded the internet immediately upon their announcement on September 29, 2025. Just one day later, People magazine reported that Kidman filed for divorce in Nashville. Per court documents obtained by the outlet, Kidman cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for the split. Interestingly, there may have been some writing on the wall, so to speak, with an old report resurfacing that seems to support the idea that there's long been trouble in the former couple's marriage. 

In April 2018, Life & Style reported that "tensions" between Kidman and Urban had grown and that the two were headed for splitsville. "Keith has moved out of the family home he shares with Nicole after a string of arguments. He's been staying at a five-star hotel in LA," a source told the outlet at the time. Regardless, the couple didn't divorce and seemed to be happy together in the years that followed.

Kidman, who was married to actor Tom Cruise when she was younger, met Urban at an event in Los Angeles in 2005. "I remember thinking, I had such a crush on him, and he wasn't interested in me," Nicole said during a 2017 appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," adding that Urban didn't call her "for four months" after she gave him her number (via E! News). The two would eventually reconnect and fall in love, leading to their marriage in June 2006. They'd go on to welcome two daughters together — Sunday and Faith — and seemed to be in wedded bliss. That is, until rumors about their marriage started creeping up on the internet. 

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban barely made it through their first year of marriage, nearly divorcing shortly after tying the knot. "We got married in June 2006 and barely four months into our marriage, my addictions ... that I'd done really nothing about, blew our marriage to smithereens," Urban said at the 49th AFI Life Achievement Award Gala in 2024. "I had no idea what was going to happen to us," he continued, adding, "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."

Considering their tumultuous first year of marriage, it may not have been much of a surprise to Kidman and Urban that things would come to this; it certainly wasn't surprising to some. As it turns out, Kidman and Urban's marriage may have been breaking down for years, despite their public-facing lovey-dovey interactions. Following news of their split, a source told People magazine that their decision wasn't all that shocking to the people who knew them best. The source claimed that the two have "been living separately for a while now," and that they weren't really trying to hide it, adding, "People close to Keith felt like the split was kind of inevitable." Neither Kidman nor Urban have spoken out about their decision to divorce at the time of this writing.