'Nicole is determined to beat Tom up the aisle'

The Daily Mail, UK/May 18, 2006
By Alison Boshoff

There have been denials, a not-very-convincing smokescreen and a false start. But finally, Nicole Kidman has confirmed that she and country music singer Keith are engaged.

The news came at a gala charity event in New York on Monday night, when the Australian actress smiled and admitted: "He's actually my fiancé."

It's really not like Nicole to be forthcoming, but it seems that on the spur of the moment she felt so proud of Keith that she couldn't help herself. She now plans to get married, the Mail has learned, in June - before ex-husband Tom Cruise can marry his fiancée Katie Holmes.

More importantly, Nicole will try to fulfil her dream of motherhood at the relatively advanced age of 38.

Her wedding dress is being made by Balenciaga, whom she also favoured at the Oscars, and she has already had several fittings. No one at the fashion house dares let slip what it will look like, but a mole said: "All I can tell you is that it has been ordered to be completed in May."

In fact, the star put in her order for the dress last November, a few days after Urban proposed, at a time when her representatives were still insisting they were "just friends". Kidman, it seems, was sure enough she and fellow Australian Urban were going to last the course - or was just so keen to be wed - that she started planning her dress straight away.

A Nashville wedding

The betting among Urban's friends is that they will be married at the groom's home in Nashville. Kidman had wanted a church wedding in Sydney, her home city - and had had her union with Cruise annulled in order to make that possible - but Urban feels that the media attention will be too ferocious.

Urban, a recovered crack cocaine addict and alcoholic, has, it is claimed, at times said he needs to concentrate on his sobriety, and like many men, he has found the preparations for the nuptials stressful. However, despite a slight delay from May to June, the wedding is firmly on.

The couple met at an event for famous Australians in January last year, when he was in a relationship with supermodel Nikki Taylor. In July, he started dating Kidman and they were engaged a few months later - last Thanksgiving - when she met his parents and spent time at his home.

It's certainly a romantic story, but the fact is they seem to have little in common. Urban, 38, was brought up on a farm outside Brisbane and loves motorbikes and guitars, while Kidman, who likes to read the poet Philip Larkin and go to the theatre, makes an unlikely country chick.

However, she does appreciate his family values and, most importantly, feels he is 'genuine' - the word she uses over and over again when talking about him with girlfriends. A Hollywood source told the Mail: "Word here is that he is a bit reluctant, but she seems to be pushing him up the aisle with both hands."

Why the hurry to wed?

So why the hurry to wed? With Tom Cruise and Katie aiming for a July wedding, maybe Nicole is anxious to beat them up the aisle.

One could certainly not blame her for wanting to have a little good news of her own to spread after Cruise's extraordinary year. Her ex has, of course, used every breath to proclaim his joy in his new family and fiancée Katie Holmes.

Speak to most Hollywood sources and you will be told that Cruise and Kidman are virtually at war, with reports of huge rows over everything from Cruise allowing Katie to answer his daughter Isabella's mobile phone, to Cruise's theory that Isabella, 13, and Connor, 11 - the children adopted by Cruise and Kidman - might benefit from witnessing Holmes deliver the baby.

When Tom and Katie's daughter, Suri, was born last month, there came that rather extraordinary statement Kidman's publicist, fuelling the whispers of a division.

"I hope mother and baby are doing well," it ran. No congratulations. And no mention at all of Tom - either by name or otherwise.

From talking to Kidman's friends, it is clear that, like the rest of the world, she has watched with fascinated horror as her former husband has groomed Katie, who is only 27, to be his consort.

Scientology has been the tool with which she has been moulded. Quietly and out of the spotlight, Cruise has risen high in the ranks of the religion, which was founded by sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard and holds that humans are exiled aliens.

Kidman fears the impact these beliefs may have on their adopted children. It is a major source of friction that Isabella and Connor are being raised in a heavily religious Scientology household.

They live in Los Angeles with their father and Cruise's three sisters and their children - all Scientology converts - in what has been described as a miniature sect.

Sinister force of Scientology

Kidman has reverted to her Roman Catholic faith since their marriage was declared over. To her, Scientology is a rather sinister force which demands the absolute dedication of its followers.

The children are home-schooled and tend to see their mother between her filming commitments - a situation that can make for long separations. Now, for Kidman to see Cruise finally achieve his dream of becoming a father, it is shatteringly painful.

She shared his dream of having children and is understood to have had an ectopic pregnancy in 1990, shortly before they were married. The pregnancy was terminated to save her life, but one of her fallopian tubes was damaged.

Her joy at adopting the two children - handed over within a fortnight of birth - was tempered by a desire to bear a child of her own.

In an interview last year, she said: "I'd love to have more children - one more. I'd like to give birth to a baby. I'd really love to. I'd feel very, very, very blessed if that was given to me."

In fact, she was eight weeks pregnant when the end of the marriage was announced, but had not told Cruise because she was still not sure she was expecting. Five weeks later, she lost the baby. It was the darkest time of her life.

It has to be said that Cruise has not, in the circumstances, been as sensitive as he might. Kidman discovered Katie Holmes was pregnant from watching the TV news.

And so, barring disasters, in only a few weeks it will be Nicole Kidman's turn to announce some happy news. Won't it be interesting to see what statement Tom Cruise puts out when that comes to pass?