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Custody plan emerges as Nicole Kidman files for divorce from Keith Urban
Updated ,first published
Nicole Kidman has filed for divorce from Keith Urban after 19 years of marriage.
Kidman petitioned on Wednesday (AEST) to end the marriage in a Nashville court. The filing states the marriage “suffered irreconcilable differences”.
The filings include a marriage dissolution and childcare plan agreed on by the couple and submitted for a judge’s approval.
“The mother and father will behave with each other and each child so as to provide a loving, stable, consistent and nurturing relationship with the child even though they are divorced,” says the permanent parenting plan, using language common in the state’s divorces. “They will not speak badly of each other or the members of the family of the other parent. They will encourage each child to continue to love the other parent and be comfortable in both families.”
The plan asks that Kidman be the primary residential parent to the couple’s two daughters, ages 17 and 14, having them for 306 days per year with Urban taking them for the other 59.
The girls have lived in Nashville all their lives, and the documents give no indication that will change.
The filing states that each parent earns more than $100,000 per month and neither will need childcare or spousal support.
The marriage dissolution plan lays out a roughly equal division of joint assets, with each keeping all the assets that are in their own name, including the copyrights and royalties for their artistic work.
The detailed agreements suggests that the divorce had been in the works for well over a month at the least. Urban signed the parenting plan on August 29, Kidman on September 6.
It will take at least 90 days for the divorce to become final under Tennessee law.
Representatives for Kidman and Urban did not respond to emailed requests for comment on Tuesday.
A source close to the family, who did not want to be named due to the sensitive nature of the matter, told this masthead that Kidman is “broken-hearted” and that the actor has been attempting to keep the family together for several months for the sake of their children.
US site TMZ reported on Tuesday (AEST) the couple had been living apart “since the beginning of [the northern] summer”.
The split comes amid a number of other changes in Urban’s life. In January, the musician parted ways with three of his long-serving band members, including band leader and guitarist Jerry Flowers and multi-instrumentalist Nathan Barlowe, ahead of his world tour.
Citing multiple but unnamed sources, TMZ reported that Kidman had been taking care of the pair’s two children and “holding the family together through this difficult time since Keith has been gone”.
The report said Urban has moved out of their Nashville family home and into his own residence, also in Nashville. The Grammy-winning country musician has been on his High and Alive World Tour, which touched down in Australia in August.
The 58-year-old Oscar-winning actor and the 57-year-old Grammy-winning country singer, both raised in Australia, met in 2005 at a Los Angeles event honouring Australians and were married in Sydney the following year.
They have two teenage daughters together.
The marriage was the first for Urban and the second for Kidman, who was married to Tom Cruise from 1990 to 2001. Kidman also has two older children with Cruise.
Last year at the premiere of the Netflix series The Perfect Couple, Kidman told The Associated Press the term didn’t apply to her and Urban.
“You’re heading for trouble if you consider yourselves the perfect couple,” she said. “I’m not a believer in perfect.”
A few months earlier, Urban paid tribute to Kidman and brought her to tears when she received the AFI Life Achievement Award.
Urban said she showed him “what love in action really looks like” when his substance abuse problems emerged almost immediately after they wed in 2006.
“Four months into our marriage, I’m in rehab for three months,” Urban said. “Nic pushed through every negative voice, I’m sure even some of her own, and she chose love. And here we are, 18 years later.”
Kidman’s film roles have included Days of Thunder, Eyes Wide Shut, Moulin Rouge and The Hours, for which she won an Academy Award for playing author Virginia Woolf. She has more recently worked in television, including the series Nine Perfect Strangers and Big Little Lies, for which she won Emmys as both actor and producer.
Urban has been a major country star since the 1990s, with hits including Somebody Like You and Blue Ain’t Your Color. He has won four Grammy Awards and more than a dozen Academy of Country Music Awards.
Their split was first reported by TMZ.
AP with staff reporters
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