SIX months after she and Keith Urban married in a candle-lit ceremony in Sydney, friends of Nicole Kidman are worried her tumultuous private life is once again heading for heartbreak.
Urban, a charming, heavily tattooed former crack addict with four piercings in each ear, has been in rehab at the Betty Ford Clinic since mid-October after relapsing into alcohol addiction.
Any holiday celebrations will merely be a festive interlude in his treatment.
In true show-business fashion, Kidman has been photographed hugging her new husband at the clinic, in Palm Springs, California, and more recently last week here in Sydney.
The couple's various publicists have been busily issuing statements stressing Urban's contrition at having let his bride down and her determination to stand by her man in his hour of need.
That, however, was before the intervention of Amanda Wyatt, a 23-year-old part-time model and self-professed nobody'', who last week alleged that Urban had been unfaithful to his superstar wife throughout their courtship and celebrity engagement.
I feel sorry for Nicole. Keith cheated on her repeatedly with me, right up to just before they got married,'' Wyatt says.
He's done it once, and he'll probably do it again.
I know him as well as anyone, and while he can be charming and loving, he is also someone who is constantly fighting his demons.
I hope their marriage works - but leopards don't change their spots. Keith is a great guy who has everything, but he is never truly happy.
''
As Wyatt told her story, Urban's publicist, Paul Freundlich, was quick to dismiss her claims as pure fiction.
Whoever you chose to believe there is undoubtably a whole galazy of difference between the world of Nicole Kidman and that of Amanda Wyatt.
The 39-year-old Australian earned a reported $US45 million last year alone.
She is the $3 million-a-year face of Chanel and, as the world's highest-paid actress, can command $US9 million a movie.
Wyatt, meanwhile, scrapes by on the proceeds of the occasional catalogue shoot and appearances on exhibition stands, and lives with a girlfriend in a modest Nashville apartment.
Still, it's easy to see why Wyatt would have appealed to 39-year-old Urban, who was born in New Zealand and raised on a Queensland farm.
Blonde, with an effervescent personality and full of southern charm, she's funny, feisty and refreshingly honest.
Wyatt furnishes her story with intimate details that only a lover could know.
She has the secret security code for Urban's guard gate, she casually drops into conversation the name of his favourite cologne - Dolce Gabbana - and says she can't smell Shea Butter Body Wash without thinking of him.
Wyatt, who is 16 years Urban's junior and was 21 when they met, admits she was surprised their relationship progressed further than a one-night stand - and says she never pushed him for commitment.
She says: I was a fan of Keith's, and longed to meet him.
I was born and raised in Nashville, and he was a star here long before the rest of the world heard about him through Nicole.
I went to a bar called the Tin Roof one night, and he was there.
I was with a group of girlfriends. After a couple of drinks, on a dare, I went right up to him and said: 'Hi Keith, I'm Amanda and I'm a big fan.
'
He just grinned. A couple of hours later, I was so flattered when he came up and said: `You're Amanda, right?'
The next thing he said was: 'Do you party?
'
I knew what that meant. I enjoy drinking and I've dabbled in drugs, though nothing heavy.''
Urban's turning to drugs to help him cope with the pain of rejection at the start of his career is well-known.
He has spoken about going into rehab for cocaine and crack addiction, but Wyatt insits: Nashville is a small town. Everyone in every bar knew he was still drinking and partying.
That night, we ended up back at his place.
He told me he was lonely, and acted like a guy who wanted to be loved.
He was constantly telling me how beautiful I was.
We made love, and he was anxious to please me.
I woke up next morning to find him stroking my leg. He was so warm and tender. I was totally surprised.
I would have been happy to have had just one night with him, but it quickly became much more.
He had this big, beige-coloured hot tub, and he'd light lovely scented candles and we'd take big bubble baths together.
It was so romantic.
The music would be playing low in the background, and he loved to wash me, rub my feet and wash my hair.
He told me he loved me. He was always telling me how I made him feel young, how I was sexy and beautiful.
It was a real turn-on.''
Wyatt says she and Urban were inseparable early in their relationship, which continued until May, 2006 - less than a month before his wedding to Kidman.
She temporarily moved into the home he was renting in the suburb of Brentwood, and even met his parents, Bob and Marienne, who had arrived from Australia to spend the 2004 Thanksgiving holiday with their son.
But perhaps even more disturbing than Urban's sexual infidelity to Kidman was Wyatt's claim that he was constantly drunk and a heavy drug user throughout their affair.
She added: As I got to know him, it was clear he was a deeply troubled man.
He drank constantly; his favourite was Crown Royal Reserve whisky.
And he did drugs: ecstasy, cocaine, pot - you name it.
I took ecstasy with him. His drug use was no secret.
He told me he'd been in rehab for cocaine, and when his mother was there from Australia, she was very protective of him.
She kept telling me it was OK for him to drink, but begged me not to let him do cocaine again.
I didn't dare tell her the truth - that he was still doing it.
Keith told me: 'Everyone thinks I have everything, but I can't be happy. I'm just not happy. I have this huge, gaping hole inside of me I just can't fill.
'
I felt sorry for him, but I think he filled that hole with drugs.
Looking back, I rarely saw him sober. He'd work during the day, but the bourbon would be flowing and at night he'd take ecstasy and coke.
We partied constantly. He'd wake up in the morning and would still be high.
There was a place in downtown Nashville where he'd get his drugs.
I also knew a guy who supplied him.
Keith was always high on something. I knew what he was doing, but he was never nasty to me.
He was quite discreet with his drugs. He'd do them at home.
If we were in a strange place, he would go into the bathroom.
''
Wyatt's allegations will surely come as a hammer blow to Kidman, who endured a series of rocky years after Tom Cruise walked out on her in 2000 after 10 years of marriage.
Kidman, who had raised two children with Cruise, was said to be devastated about the split - a feeling no doubt compounded by Cruise's high-profile declarations of passion for Katie Holmes, his new wife.
Kidman reacted with a string of brief, failed romances with rock star Lenny Kravitz and Liz Hurley's ex, Steve Bing, before meeting Urban at a concert in January, 2005.
Theirs was a low-profile romance - they weren't even photographed together as a couple until April, 2005 (and rarely after that).
But what Kidman didn't know was that Urban was simultaneously carrying out an equally low-profile relationship with Wyatt.
Keith is on the road a lot, but he would call and text me constantly,'' Wyatt says.
Sometimes his texts were sexual, but a lot of the time he was just lonely.
He used to tell me how much he missed me making him laugh.
Whenever he came home to Nashville, we'd get together.
I never pressured him to commit.
Keith told me he liked the fact that I didn't pressure him to get married or have babies. He told me he longed for a child.
When we made love, he never used protection. I sometimes wonder if he said the same thing to Nicole. I never wanted to trap him.
I could have done, but I didn't.''
Wyatt says she was unaware of Urban's burgeoning romance with Kidman until she saw a photograph of the pair together in a tabloid magazine during the summer of 2005.
You have to understand that Keith was a star and I was a nobody.
But even by his standards, Nicole was a real superstar.
:His dad had a saying: 'Never marry for money, but don't not marry into money.'
I think he wanted to make his dad proud.
''
When I asked Keith about the magazine photo, he went silent and said nothing. He just said: 'I don't want to talk about it - not with you.'
It sounds dumb, but I never asked him again.
I guess I knew he was seeing her, but he was also seeing me.
He wasn't married, so I still held out hope that they were just having some kind of publicity relationship.
After that, whenever Keith came back to Nashville, he'd call me and I'd go around to his place.
By this time, he'd had a big mansion built. He gave me the security code to get through the guard gate. I would go in, we'd shower together, then we would make love.
I never felt he was using me. He was so tender and affectionate.
The next day, we would eat chocolate M Ms and watch movies in his bed.
His bedroom is on the ground floor of his house, off to the right.
He has a pool table in the basement. Everyone in Nashville knew we were together.
My brothers and friends came to his house. He wasn't trying to hide anything. He would always hold my hand and kiss me in front of my friends.
I tried not to fall in love with him, but we were together throughout the whole time he was dating Nicole and engaged to her, right through 2005 and until around May, 2006.
Whenever he was in town, we'd see each other two or three times a week. We'd drink and party and make love, and he was constantly on drugs.
Looking back, maybe he came to Nashville and partied with me because he could do things with me he couldn't do with Nicole.
He has his demons. I'm sure she didn't know about his drug use but it was so obvious when he was with me.
Maybe he kept it hidden from her.
Then, around May, he suddenly turned cold and stopped calling and replying to my texts.
They got married in June.
''
Wyatt says she last saw Urban in October - a meeting she is reluctant to discuss.
But a US magazine reported that Wyatt and Urban had been seen kissing and cuddling in a Nashville bar while Kidman was at the Rome film festival.
A witness was quoted as saying: They were all over each other kissing and touching.
It was like: Get a room!''
At the time, Urban's Los Angeles publicist dismissed the story as a fabrication. But within days, the country singer had checked himself into rehab.
This time, the publicist issued a grovelling apology on Urban's behalf, saying: I deeply regret the hurt this has caused Nicole and the ones that love and support me.
One can never let one's guard down on recovery, and I'm afraid that I have.''
Wyatt, meanwhile, says she is speaking out about her long-term relationship with Urban to counter allegations in Nashville that she is a home-wrecker.
I'm sorry if I hurt Nicole,'' she says, but I just want to tell the truth and move on.
I hope that she finds happiness with him, but Keith is a deeply troubled man.
I hope, for Nicole's sake, that Keith sorts himself out.
She deserves better.''
If people would get busy taking care of their own skeletons instead of trying to butt into everyone elses business the world would be a better place.If he had an affair its between Nichole and him no one else!
Get A LIFE PEOPLE!
Posted by: Brenda Bond of Va 8:59am January 01, 2007 We welcome your comments on this story. Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited.
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