SYDNEY - OSCAR-winning Australian actress Nicole Kidman is pregnant, her publicist said on Monday.

'Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban confirmed today that they are expecting a baby,' Kidman's publicist Wendy Day said in a statement. 'The couple are thrilled.' Kidman has been pregnant once before with her ex-husband Tom Cruise but suffered a miscarriage. Kidman and Cruise adopted two children, Isabella and Connor.

Rumours of Kidman's pregnancy have circulated for a few weeks, with reports she told her family over Christmas holidays in Australia that she was expecting.

Kidman married Urban in Sydney in 2006.

Grammy-winning Urban spent two months in a rehab centre after the wedding, but did not disclose the nature of his treatment. He has acknowledged an addiction to cocaine in the past and credits Kidman with seeing him through his crisis.

For most of 2007, Kidman was in Australia filming Baz Luhrmann's big budget epic 'Australia' with Hugh Jackman. She plays an English aristocrat who inherits a massive cattle station in outback Australia prior to World War Two. -- REUTERS