Urban checks into a rehab center

A little more than two weeks before the release of Keith Urban’s new album, the country singer who married Nicole Kidman in June has checked himself into a rehab facility. In a short statement issued Friday through a spokesman, the 38-year-old musician said, “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.”

Urban battled cocaine and alcohol abuse in the 1990s when he was still a struggling musician, but he went through rehab at the time and said he had remained sober while his career took off with a string of hit singles and albums, including “Golden Road” in 2002 and “Be Here” in 2004, each of which has sold more than 3 million copies in the U.S.

His new album, “Love, Pain and the whole crazy thing,” is due to be released Nov. 7, and he is slated to perform on the annual Country Music Assn. Awards telecast on CBS a night earlier. He canceled a concert that had been scheduled for Friday in Connecticut, and Friday’s statement said, “All immediate appearances for his forthcoming CD will be postponed” but did not specify whether that includes the CMA show.