Fifteen Minutes Alone with Keith Urban...

Last weekend, I got to conduct an interview - Oprah style - with Keith Urban. He pulled all his meet-and-greeters into a room, and we both sat in easy chairs and sipped gigantic bottles of water while discussing his kids, wife, music and Michael Buble.

I've been through a lot of meet and greets, and never seen one like this. More often than not they feel like a cattle call; one superstar I know even prides himself on the speed at which he can get through 60 to 80 nervous fans. Keith is innovating. Ironically, the first thing I noticed is that he seemed a little nervous.

If Urban took a personality test, he'd likely come out on the introvert scale. Unfortunately he's in an extroverted business, but he's found ways to cope. Asking a local DJ to moderate an interview is a very clever way of transferring pressure. When all else fails, joke around with the jock.

Which is exactly how we began our chat. Urban playfully compared me to Geraldo, and then Maury Povich. It was pretty funny, and I imagine to some extent he was serving up humor to the hungry audience. I've followed Urban closely over the years (as I have all country superstars) and learned he likes to keep his high profile marriage to Nicole Kidman as private as possible. The first thing I did was congratulate him on five years of marriage, and ask question about their relationship. After he scooted around my third question on the topic with a few more quips and jokes, I changed the topic, deciding to return later if time allowed. It didn't.

In my head, I had written this script of Urban toiling through personal demons until he found true love in Kidman, and only now is he comfortable enough to begin opening up to fans. Perhaps I watch too many movies. More likely his recent availability is a slow metamorphosis of events, and nothing in particular caused him to wake up one day shouting 'I Love My Fans!'

So I pulled an audible and stuck to what made him comfortable. After all, the goal was to entertain the 30 or so people in the crowd, not to satisfy my curiosities. I hope one day he writes a tell-all, but to be honest he probably shouldn't unless purging his conscious provides mental therapy. Anything else would just be fodder for tabloids, and a man with that much artistic talent doesn't need to pander.

At the end of our interview, we stood up, shook hands and walked off stage. Urban bolted out of the room with a gaggle of people behind him. I suspect he was eager to get back to his dressing room as he revealed earlier that Kidman had just surprised him with a visit. The night was one of the most memorable of my career.