Couples
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s Secrets to Their Spicy Marriage: ‘Can’t Keep Their Hands Off of Each Other’
Her performance has been hailed as one of her most fearless yet.
“It captivated me; it didn’t scare me,” Nicole Kidman told W earlier this year of her erotic movie, Babygirl. And while she admitted at a 2024 screening of the film that she felt “burnout” from performing multiple graphic sex scenes, she told W she was drawn to the film by the title.
It’s the nickname her husband, Keith Urban, has for her.
“He actually has ‘Babygirl’ tattooed on the back of his neck,” she revealed, before pointedly adding, “Keith’s not allowed to call anyone else ‘Babygirl.’”
That’s just one of their rules for keeping the spark alive.
“They’ve got more than a few secrets to a spicy marriage,” a source exclusively tells Closer of the couple, who met 20 years ago and will celebrate their 19th wedding anniversary in June.
Long ago, Nicole, 57, and Keith, 57, set firm guidelines about how they communicate “that are obviously working,” adds the source. “They famously can’t keep their hands off of each other!”
Her steamiest tip? “We have a double shower,” Nicole told W. “The double-headed shower: key to a successful marriage!”
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban Stay Connected After Nearly 20 Years of Marriage and Welcoming Their Daughters
On a more serious note, they’re also very intentional about how they interact with each other.
“Our family priest told us very early on in our marriage, ‘Always kiss hello and kiss goodbye,’” Nicole told In Style in 2019. “It just keeps you connected.”
Keith writes love letters for “every single night he’s away,” she also told In Style, and from the beginning they have insisted on calling instead of texting when they’re apart.
“We just do ‘voice-to-voice’ or ‘skin-to-skin,’ as we always say,” she told Parade in 2018. “We talk all the time and we FaceTime but I feel like texting can be misrepresentative at times. I don’t want that between my lover and I.”
That in-person “skin-to-skin” time is critical. While the Oscar winner has made it clear that she and the country star live their own lives — and he’s definitely not on-set watching her film sex scenes or even reading the scripts beforehand — “we love spending time together,” she told Parade. “We’ll get on planes and fly overnight rather than have a night apart. We will do anything to make it work.”
She’s already proven it. Just four months into their marriage in 2006, Keith went to rehab for three months.
“And if you want to see what love in action really looks like, give that a whirl,” he said at her AFI tribute last year. “Nic pushed through every negative voice, I’m sure even some of her own. And she chose love.”
