Keith Urban rocked out while performing at the 2024 CMT Music Awards on Sunday, April 7.
The country singer, 56, sang his track “Straight Line” at the awards show, which took place at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas.
Emma Roberts presented the performance, saying, “The only artist I love more than this next performer is his wife,” referring to Urban’s wife, Nicole Kidman. “Every time this guy plays the CMT Music Awards it’s epic, and tonight he’s about to do it again.”
While Urban did not receive any nods this year, he has won nine CMT awards out of 30 nominations throughout his career, including three for Video of the Year and two for Male Video of the Year.
Urban attended the awards show solo, but found time on the red carpet to gush about his relationship with Kidman, also 56. When E! News asked what the secret is behind a 17-year marriage, he replied, “If I answer that, it’ll come across as advice for other married people. I have no advice for anybody.”
He continued, “You guys figure out whatever works for you. We’re figuring it out. You figure it out. Everybody’s different. There’s no one size fits all.”
Keith noted that he’d be interested in collaborating with Kidman. “We sing around the house a lot,” he said. “So, why not?”
Since Urban and Kidman tied the knot in June 2006, the couple — who share daughters Sunday, 15, and Faith, 13 — have accompanied one another to a variety of awards shows, with Kidman becoming a regular presence at country music ceremonies. Although Kidman is known for her impressive red carpet style, she confessed earlier this year that she prefers to stay in rather than attend the glamorous events that come with her stardom.
“It feels a little unreal at times,” she told Elle in March. “I want to get out, take my dress off and put my jammies on. It’s kind of like the opposite of Cinderella — I’m happy to go home and just go back to me.”
Kidman added that she feels more like herself outside of the spotlight. “It does feel a little overwhelming,” she explained. “I’m like, ‘I need to go home now. I’m very tired. I want to get warm, and I want to curl up, and I want to feel real.’”
According to Kidman, it is easier for her to “feel real” when she is with her family and friends instead of at high-profile industry events.
“I have a very full life with people that I love,” she continued. “I’m raising daughters. I’m a wife, I’m a best friend. I’m a sister, I’m an aunt. I have deeply intimate relationships with people. And that, to me, is the meaning of life — and then taking care of what we leave behind, who we leave behind and how we do that, and our sense of respect for that.”
As for her relationship with Urban, Kidman gushed during a January 2022 appearance on CBS Mornings that he is “the best thing that’s ever happened” to her, adding that they are “very suited” for each other and she is “incredibly lucky to have met him.”
Urban, for his part, revealed during a December 2021 episode of “Living & Learning With Reba McEntire” that his “biggest achievement” in life was “marrying the right person … for the right reasons.”
