According to Us Weekly, for the first few years of his career, Urban played in a group called The Ranch whose first album flopped, causing the band to split up. Overwhelmed by failure, Urban began drinking excessively and freebasing cocaine. He has said that the turning point came when he found himself crawling around a crack house at 5 in the morning, covered in sweat, looking for rocks to smoke.

In 1998, the singer checked into the Cumberland Heights treatment center in Nashville, Tennesse, and was thought to be clean for the last eight years.

"One can never let one's guard down on recovery, and I'm afraid that I have," Keith said in a statement. "With the strength and unwavering support I am blessed to have from my wife, I am determined and resolved to a positive outcome."

As a result of his treatment, all immediate appearances for his forthcoming CD (originally scheduled for release November 7) will be postponed.


A spokesperson tells Us Weekly that Urban is in rehab for alcohol abuse.

Last week, Australia's top gossip magazine, NW reported that Urban slammed reports he cheated on Nicole Kidman with a porn star at his bachelor party.

An insider alleges , Keith got drunk and had a three-hour sex session with a porn star in a suite at an LA hotel. The country singer, angrily dismissed the claims as ridiculous.

The source claims Keith had two parties. Keith's official bucks' night, held in the Sydney waterfront home he shares with Nicole, 39, was a relatively tame affair that was even attended by his bride to be and her family.

Keith, 38, was careful to ensure the night was booze- and stripper-free, not least so he could calm Nicole's anxiety about his sex- and drug-filled past.

The second stag party a much raunchier, unofficial bucks' night took place three months earlier at a hotel in LA.