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Verdict in Central Prison Assault Case on October 28

DUBAI - The Dubai Court of Appeal will pronounce its verdict in the Central Prison assault case against four high-ranking police officers and 21 jail wardens on October 28.

Published: Fri 17 Oct 2008, 12:36 AM

Updated: Tue 14 Nov 2023, 2:06 PM

  • By
  • Mary Nammour

Then, the Oscar-winning actress positively beamed with happiness as she showed off her 3.5-carat diamond ring on a stroll around his sprawling estate in Nashville, Tennessee.

But this Christmas is likely to be a far less joyous affair for Nicole. Only six months after she and Keith married in a simple candle-lit ceremony in Sydney, her friends fear that 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 showbusiness fashion, Nicole has been photographed hugging her new husband at the clinic in Palm Springs, California.

The couple's various publicists have been busily issuing statements stressing Keith'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 night revealed that Urban was unfaithful to his superstar wife throughout their courtship and engagement.

She says: 'I feel sorry for Nicole. Keith cheated on her repeatedly with me, right up to just before they got married. He's done it once and he will 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 guy who has everything, but he is never truly happy.'

The contrast between Nicole Kidman and Amanda Wyatt could hardly be more pronounced. The 39-year-old Australian earned a reported £45 million last year alone. She is the £3 million-a-year face of Chanel and, as the world's highest-paid actress, can command up to £9 million a movie. Amanda, 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.

But it is easy to see why Amanda appealed to 39-year-old Urban, who was born in New Zealand and raised on a remote farmstead in Queensland, Australia. Blonde, with an effervescent personality and full of non-demanding southern charm, she is funny, feisty and refreshingly honest.

Amanda furnishes her story with intimate details only a lover could know. She has Urban's secret security code for his guard gate, she casually drops into conversation the name of his favourite cologne - Dolce & Gabbana - and says she cannot smell Shea Butter Body Wash without thinking of him.

Furthermore, Amanda, who is 16 years his junior and was just 21 when they met in 2004, admits she was surprised their relationship ever progressed further than a one-night stand - and says she never once 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 and 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 story of turning to drugs to help him cope with the pain of rejection at the beginning of his musical career is well known. He has spoken about going into rehab for cocaine and crack addiction. But Amanda insists: '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.

'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 lit 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.

Amanda says she and Urban were inseparable in the early part of their relationship, which continued until May

2006, less than a month before his wedding to Nicole Kidman.

She temporarily moved into the home he was then renting in the Brentwood suburb of Nashville and even met his parents, Bob and Marienne, who had arrived from Australia to spend the 2004 Thanksgiving holiday with their son.

But even more disturbing, perhaps, than Urban's sexual infidelity to Nicole Kidman was Amanda's insistence that Urban was constantly drunk and a heavy drug user throughout their long 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 am 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.'

AMANDA'S revelations will surely come as a hammer blow to Nicole, who endured a series of rocky years after Tom Cruise walked out on her in 2000 after ten years of marriage.

Nicole, who had adopted two children with Cruise, was said to be devastated about the split, a feeling no doubt compounded by Cruise's highprofile declarations of passion for Katie Holmes, his new wife and the mother of his new daughter Suri.

Nicole 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 were not even photographed together as a couple until April 2005 (and rarely after that). But what Nicole did not know was that Urban was simultaneously carrying out an equally low-profile relationship with Amanda.

Amanda said: 'Keith is on the road a lot but he would call and text me constantly. Sometimes his texts were sexual but a lot of the time he was just lonely. He used to call me and 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. I really liked him. I loved him, but I also know how easy it is for musicians to get girls.

'Once, when we were in a bar, I went to the ladies' room and a girlfriend of mine started stroking his leg under the table. I was mad but I also understood this was a man who needed to be given his freedom.

'He told me he liked that I didn't pressurise 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.'

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Amanda said she was unaware of Urban's burgeoning romance with Nicole until she saw a photograph of the pair together in a tabloid magazine in the summer of 2005.

'You have to understand 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 round 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 never felt he was using me. He was so tender and affectionate. Then 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. We'd go out to clubs together. He even took me to a fund-raiser for a children's hospital.

'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 to 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 he was constantly on drugs.'

She adds: '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.'

THE last time Amanda says she saw Urban was in October - a meeting she is reluctant to discuss. But an American magazine reported that they were seen kissing-and cuddling in a Nashville bar while Nicole 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.'

Amanda, meanwhile, says she is now speaking out about her longterm relationship with Urban to counter allegations in Nashville that she is a 'homewrecker'.

'I'm sorry if I hurt Nicole,' she says, 'but I just want to tell the truth and move on.

'I hope she finds happiness with him. But Keith is a deeply troubled man. I hope, for her sake, that he sorts himself out.

'She deserves better.'



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