Keith Urban is reminding everyone that he was right about his longtime love for Nicole Kidman.
During the country crooner’s emotional speech honoring his wife at the 49th AFI Life Achievement Awards on Saturday, April 27, Urban recalled why he was too “nervous” to make a move after their first meeting.
“I was trying to play it cool, but inside I felt like I had snuck into the royal ball just because Nic had a really supernatural aura about her,” Urban, 56, said. remembering meeting Kidman, also 56, in January 2005 at a G’Day LA event in California.
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“It kind of felt like I was meeting a real princess,” Urban added. “And despite all that, I managed to get his phone number on a little piece of paper.”
Urban kept her number in his pocket for a week, pulling it out every so often to try to work up the courage to call her.
“I was scared. I was nervous to call him,” he continued during his speech at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. “I have, as you have probably gathered, found the courage to finally call him.”
The call went well, with the once-nervous Urban recalling how “this mystical creature” turned out to be “just a wide-eyed, ditzy girl from the suburbs of Sydney” who is “completely Australian through and through “, even though she was born in Honolulu.
AFI’s tribute to Kidman, which also marked the first public red carpet event for her and Urban’s teenage daughters, included other speeches from famous friends such as Reese Witherspoon, Naomi Watts and Zac Efron .
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“Everyone here tonight is going to talk about how talented Nic is, and I could easily do that myself,” Urban said. “I mean, she really is one of the greatest, like Russell Crowe said, and tonight proves that I’m not just a biased husband.”
The proud husband then opened up about how much Kidman loved him even when he went to rehab for drug addiction shortly after their marriage.
“I want to take this opportunity to speak from the heart and mind of Nic. We got married in June 2006 and just four months into our marriage, my addictions that I really didn’t do anything about caused our marriage to explode into smithereens,” Urban admitted. “And I went to the Betty Ford Center for three months. Four months into a marriage, I’m in rehab for three months. I had no idea what was going to happen to us.
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The story brought Kidman to tears as she listened in the audience, alongside him. Big little lies her colleagues – Meryl Streep and Witherspoon – and Morgan Freeman, who worked with her on Lioness.
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“And if you want to see what love really looks like in action, try it,” he said. “Nic cut through all the negative voices, I’m sure, even some of his own. And she chose love. And here we are tonight, 18 years later.
Shortly after his rehab, Urban released a song about Kidman called “Got It Right This Time”, with the heartfelt lyrics: “She believes in me like I tried to, I see things that I have never seen before. . Since she came into my life, I am a better man.
