Country singer Keith Urban is opening up about his fight with drug and alcohol addictions — and how he’s “lucky” his career is still intact.
The Australian country singer first entered a Nashville rehab for treatment in 1998. Almost a decade later, not long after he married “Eyes Wide Shut” star Nicole Kidman in 2006, he spent another few months at the Betty Ford Center — at his Hawaiian-born wife’s insistence.
“Everyone does what they want to do to have a great time. I just realized I’m allergic to [substances]. Someone said, ‘You have an allergy? What happens when you drink?’ And I said, ‘I break out in cuffs,’” Urban, 54, recalled in a profile for the Sunday Times.
“I had to find a different way to be in the world,” Urban said about how his sobriety altered his life — and career.
“I’m glad it didn’t change anything about my music. I wrote plenty of hit songs while drunk. I wrote plenty sober,” he continued. “I feel lucky it hasn’t defined my creativity.”
In 2016, Urban told Rolling Stone that Oscar-winning “The Hours” actress Kidman, 54 — with whom he shares daughters Faith, 10, and Sunday, 13 — staged an intervention for him at one point to deal with his demons. Last September, he opened up further about the couple’s rocky start following his nuptials.
“I caused the implosion of my fresh marriage,” he told the Australian version of the magazine. “It survived, but it’s a miracle it did. I was spiritually awoken with her. I use the expression ‘I was born into her,’ and that’s how I feel. And for the first time in my life, I could shake off the shackles of addiction.”
ORDER A COPY OF ROB’S NEW BEST SELLING BOOK! Called “America’s Number ONE Gossip Columnist” by The National Enquirer. Rob ‘Naughty But Nice’ Shuter breaks celebrity news every day on his website NaughtyGossip.com where he delivers all the dish about the stars we love in his naughty but nice signature style. You can also catch him co-hosting and breaking celebrity news on Good Day New York, The Today Show, The Talk, Wendy Williams Show, CNN, Extra and Z100’s ‘Elvis Duran.’ Previously, Rob was the Huffington Post’s only celebrity columnist and the former executive editor of OK! Magazine. Rob has also hosted his own Saturday night talk show on Mark Cuban’s channel and his own daily morning show, ‘The Gossip Table,’ on VH1! Breaking some of the biggest entertainment stories, including Jamie Lynn Spears’s pregnancy news, Britney’s first post-meltdown interview, Eva Longoria’s wedding, and baby exclusives for Jessica Alba, Tori Spelling and Mathew McConaughey’s tots, Rob always knows where to find the best scoop. Before Rob was one of the world’s most successful entertainment reporters, he was a publicist working for Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys, P. Diddy, Jessica Simpson and Jon Bon Jovi! Now he is bringing all this experience to his new show on I HEART MEDIA in his unique cheeky way, that is always a pinch and never a punch!