9 Things to Know About Keith Urban

Keith Urban celebrates his 53rd birthday on Oct. 26, and the entertainer has certainly accomplished quite a bit in just over half a century. Urban has released 12 studio albums in just under 20 years, his most recent, The Speed of Now Part 1, arriving last month.

He has sold millions of records and amassed numerous No. 1 singles as well as major accolades including several Grammy Awards, CMA Entertainer of the Year and ACM Entertainer of the Year. Urban is also a member of the Grand Ole Opry and this year became one of the faces of country music during the coronavirus pandemic, often performing for fans from home.

Read on for some facts about Urban!

He was born in New Zealand

Urban is known to many as an Australian star, but the singer was actually born in Whangarei, New Zealand. He later lived with his parents in Caboolture, Queensland, Australia, where Urban began learning guitar and entering local competitions. He also acted in a local theater company.

He competed on an Australian talent competition

In 1993, Urban competed on the Australian talent show New Faces, though he didn’t win. The show was Urban’s first appearance on the Australian country music circuit, which he was involved in for several years, making various television appearances and performing on stage.

His favorite Thanksgiving food is deep-fried turkey

Though Urban hails from Down Under, he now celebrates the American holiday of Thanksgiving and told WXTUFM that his favorite food to eat on the day is deep-friend turkey.

“I’m not a very good cook,” Urban admitted. “So I wouldn’t recommend that I go near the fryer.

The star added that his for first Thanksgiving in America, he was invited to a family’s home for the holiday and was shocked by the sheer amount of food.

“I couldn’t believe the volume of food, it was insane,” he said. “I’d never seen so much food in my life. And then after the food there was like, 12 desserts.”

He had Nicole Kidman’s number for four months before he asked her out

Urban and wife Nicole Kidman have been happily married since 2006 and share two daughters, but it took some time for the pair to begin dating after initially meeting, as Urban waited four months to ask Kidman out on a date.

“I thought she was way out of my league,” he told Australia’s Interview. “It’s not an ‘Oh shucks, oh me’ story. It’s legit. I’m a kid from Brissy [Brisbane], and went to Nashville. It’s always what I wanted to do. And somewhere along the way I end up meeting Nic. I might have a wild imagination about the possibilities in life, obviously, but not in a million years did I think that some girl like that would be interested in me. At all.”

Urban explained that he views their eventual connection as a “conspiracy of angels.”

“Somebody had given me her number and I had it in my pocket for a while,” he said. “I kept looking at it thinking, ‘If I call this number, she’s going to answer. I don’t know what [to] say.’

“I wasn’t in a very healthy place in my life,” Urban continued. “I’d never have thought she’d see anything in a guy like me. But at some point I plucked up the courage to call those numbers and she answered, and we started talking and we talked and talked and talked and talked and it was effortless.”

He checked into rehab in 2006

It was Kidman who staged an intervention for Urban just a few months after they married, with the singer checking into the Betty Ford clinic that year.

“My wife put an intervention together and it was … it was divine. I mean, ‘divine intervention’, but it’s true, it really was,” Urban said of the moment. “It was love in action and the timing was absolutely divine.”

Now 12 years sober, Urban helps others with their own sobriety, including Brantley Gilbert. He also offered a message of support to Demi Lovato after she was hospitalized after a reported overdose.

He initially thought he wanted to be a radio DJ

The 53-year-old initially made a foray into radio, but was fired from his very first job.

“I went to intern at a radio station in my hometown of Brisbane, because I thought, ‘I’m going to be a radio announcer,’” Urban said, via Taste of Country. “What I really wanted to do is get behind the mic in one of the studios and run my own radio show.”

However, the job didn’t quite turn out like the singer had planned after he was allowed to try putting his own show together at one of the two booths in the studio, which was not in use.

“I put on the music, and I couldn’t hear it, and I flipped this button,” he recalled. “Next thing, I see this guy running. What happened was, in the next room there was a very serious news report being read, and right in the middle of the news report, it goes [sings the opening line], ‘Just a good old boy ….’”

While Urban was fired right then, things worked out for him in the end, as his music is now played on radio stations around the world.

 

He owns more than 100 guitars

Urban is known for his skills on the guitar, so it makes sense that he’d own a few. In fact, he owns over 100, revealing the fact on Late Night with Seth Myers. The father of two added to Rolling Stone that while he lost several of the instruments in the Nashville flood in 2010, he has since had a number of them restored, including a 1988 Fender Telecaster, the 40th anniversary edition, which Urban had named Clarence after the guardian angel in the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life.

He used to be in a band called Kids Country

When he was younger, Urban was in a band in Australia called Kids Country that would perform during school holidays. Thanks to YouTube, there is footage from this glorious time in Urban’s life, like this clip of the group singing Buddy Holly & the Crickets’ “It’s So Easy.”

He appeared in ‘Playgirl’ in 2001

Just a couple years after making his American debut, Urban covered the April 2001 issue of Playgirl, at one point posing fully nude with just a guitar covering him.

“Thank God I play guitar and not harmonica,” he joked to CMT of the shot.

Urban added that he initially hadn’t even been aware of the magazine, explaining, “I didn’t know Playgirl existed. I mean come on, what a crazy magazine. Playboy I can understand, but Playgirl…”