The 'Hollywood Husband' test, and why some men can't pass it.

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"[It] wasn't life-changing, it was life-beginning."

These were the words Keith Urban used in 2016 to describe meeting Nicole Kidman. That same year, on their 10th wedding anniversary, he called himself the "luckiest guy on the planet" to be her husband.

Fast-forward to 2024, and his words told a different story.

"I just don't want to give you guys a headline about my wife," Keith told The Times when asked about the actor. "Before you know it, the interview would be: 'My wife saved my life'. And I don't want to go there."

The reporter tried again, asking if Keith was proud of Nicole's career. The country singer replied with a curt "very."

"We've had the best conversation about my career and my music, and I love that at the very end of this conversation you're going to give one more swing to see if I'll talk about my wife. I'm not going to talk about her."

Just over 12 months since that interview, news broke this September that Keith, 57, and Nicole, 58, are divorcing after 19 years of marriage. They share two children, Sunday Rose, 17, and Faith Margaret, 14.

At first, the split was put down to two buzz words, brandished by many celebrities in their divorce announcements: "irreconcilable differences."

Watch: Ryan Phillippe says then-wife Reese Witherspoon earns more than him at the 2002 Oscars. Post continues after video.

Soon, the rumours and speculation came… that it was Keith who had wanted the divorce, not Nicole; that he had already moved on with another woman; that Nicole's schedule became too much.

While nothing has been confirmed by the ex-couple, it was the latter headline that stood out to me.

It's true that the past two years have been hectic for Nicole. She has starred in the likes of A Family Affair, Babygirl, The Perfect Couple, and more, with six other projects in the works.

At the end of last year, when Variety dubbed her one of the hardest working actors in the business, Nicole said it came down to having "the passion" for the job, and wanting to create opportunities for those "coming up" in the industry.

"It's very hard for me to go, 'Okay, I'm just going to take care of myself,' because I'm so much about taking care of other people," she said. "I'm thinking, 'I can create jobs for people'."

Nicole's words harped back to a conversation she had with her mother, Janelle, right after she welcomed her first daughter and was considering giving up acting for good. But Janelle, who passed away in September 2024, told Nicole to "keep moving forward."

"That came from a woman who was from a generation that didn't have the opportunities that I had, that she had helped create for her daughters," Nicole told CBS . "So that's probably something that she wished she'd had when she was little."

Nicole followed her mother's advice, and kept working. By her side was her supportive husband, Keith, who called her "one of the greats" and "fearless as an artist."

But as Nicole's schedule grew busier, things allegedly changed.

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are divorcing after 19 years of marriage. Image: Getty

"Keith was used to [Nicole] being supportive of his career. He's not been as supportive as she hoped," a source close to the family recently told PEOPLE, a publication known to have strong industry connections.

The country singer, who has headlined 13 tours over the past decade, has previously acknowledged he couldn't have done it without Nicole by his side.

"I always give props to Nic. Because we travel so much as a family, she does an amazing job keeping everybody together," he said at the 2014 Academy of Country Music Awards. "She's got the kids' schedule dialled in, she's dropping them off even in the middle of her work. I couldn't do any of this without her."

That same year, he told The Today Show that, above all else, he admired how Nicole balanced work with being a wife and mother.

"The thing I marvel at the most is how she does that and takes care of our family. She's an amazing wife and mother and people ask me, 'How do you do it?,' I say, 'It's Nic.' She's got all of us so incredibly taken care of. She's amazing."

Now that the couple have split, Nicole will be the primary parent of Sunday and Faith. According to their marital dissolution agreement, the girls will live with their mum for 306 days of the year, and their dad for 59 days. Coincidentally or not, in March 2025, Nicole told The Hollywood Reporter that she planned to take the rest of the year off from acting.

Keith and Nicole have not yet issued an official statement about their divorce. But the optics, and what they say about gender expectations in Hollywood, are interesting.

Let's not forget the Women in Hollywood event of 2014, when actor Jennifer Garner called out the glaring double standard for her and now-ex-husband Ben Affleck. In a day full of interviews, Jennifer was asked repeatedly how she balanced work with family life, but Ben never received the same question.

"No one asked him about it that day. As a matter of fact, no one had ever asked him about it," she said. "And we do share the same family. Isn't it time to kinda change that conversation?"

For famous men, their value isn't tied to managing the home. They are rarely reduced to the monikers of 'husband' or 'father', they typically earn more than women, they are over-represented in roles and recognition, they are less exposed to gender stereotypes and objectification, they don't have to worry if their films pass the 'Bechdel test', and they receive more grace when they mess up.

It's an industry that was created by men, for men to flourish.

Jennifer put it best when she said: "The fact that there even needs to be a 'Women in Hollywood' event is a little bit sad. I mean, the men in Hollywood event is every day — it's called Hollywood."

Not only are women in the entertainment industry playing catch-up, they're doing it with the expectation that they 'balance' their roles of 'devoted mother' or 'supportive wife'.

And so, when a woman does dare to catch up with (or, god forbid, overtake) the success of her husband, you'd think he would embrace it and all that it took for her to get there. But, as history shows, some men don't like it when the tables are turned.

Take Russell Brand, for example. The actor, who famously texted Katy Perry his intention to divorce her, insisted that the singer's overwhelming work schedule drove him away, and he didn't want to be reduced to the title of "Katy Perry's husband".

Russell Brand and Katy Perry were married for 14 months. Image: Getty

In a 2013 interview with Vogue, Katy spoke about Russell's lack of support for her career, saying: "I think a lot of times strong men do want an equal, but then they get that equal and they're like, I can't handle the equalness. He didn't like the atmosphere of me being the boss on tour. So that was really hurtful, and it was very controlling, which was upsetting."

There was also Reese Witherspoon's ex-husband, Ryan Phillippe, who, while presenting an award at the 2002 Oscars, joked that his then-wife could read the winner because she earned more money than he did. Reese later confirmed that the comment "wasn't scripted" and she was "a little bit flummoxed".

"There's so few women that make a lot of money that sometimes they're shamed for it… And that's just a double standard that exists in our society," she told the HFPA In Conversation podcast in 2020.

A year later, actor Dax Shephard confessed he had conflicting feelings about earning less than his wife of 12 years, Nobody Wants This actor Kristen Bell.

"It's historically emasculating if your wife makes a lot of money," Dax said on the Tell Me with Ellen Pompeo podcast. "I'll just say this: I've liked the years I made more than her. I feel more like, 'oh right, this is what a man's supposed to do, I'm supposed to be the earner.'"

This isn't to villainise individual men who are influenced by historical ideas of masculinity; it's a societal problem. But it comes down to this: when a woman in the entertainment industry steps out of the box that has been made for her, look closely at the man who seems threatened.

Look closely at the husband who feels insecure or dwarfed in his wife's shadow. Look closely at the husband who values his wife's role in the home at the expense of her career; who expects her to shape her life to mould his ambitions, but doesn't want to do the same for her; who seems jealous or resentful of her success.

Those are the men, in my eyes, who fail the Hollywood Husband test.

Feature Image: Getty