Ben Stiller addresses painful separation from wife Christine Taylor: 'My marriage wasn't in a great place'
The Severance director and his wife were separated for almost five years
Ben Stiller is getting candid about his years-long separation from wife Christine Taylor.
The Severance director and the Zoolander actress tied the knot in 2000, however in 2017, they announced they were going their separate ways. "With tremendous love and respect for each other, and the 18 years we spent together as a couple, we have made the decision to separate. Our priority will continue to be raising our children as devoted parents and the closest of friends. We kindly ask that the media respect our privacy at this time," they said at the time.
Then in 2022, after rekindling during the pandemic, they found their way to each other again, and now the Night at the Museum actor has given insight into how things changed.
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During a lengthy interview with the New York Times ahead of the return of Severance on Friday, January 17, Ben first alluded to his marriage not being "in a great place" in the early 2010s, around the time the family moved back to New York after 20 years of living in Los Angeles.
Addressing the separation, he then said: "When we separated, it was just having space to see what our relationship was, what my life felt like when we weren't in that relationship, how much I loved our family unit."
Christine and Ben got engaged six months after meeting, and married within the year. They share two kids, daughter Ella Olivia, 22, who studied at Julliard, and son Quinlin Dempsey, 19.
Christine and Ben in 2002
Though he said it was "three or four years" that they weren't together, he maintained: "We always were connected."
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Ben went on: "In my mind, I never didn't want us to be together. I don't know where Christine was, you'd have to ask her, but Covid put us all together in the same house."
With their children in 2013
He agreed that having to be back under the same roof because of the pandemic was "an act of God," and further shared: "It was almost a year of living in the same house before we were actually together. But I'm so grateful for it, and I think not that many people do come back together when they separate."
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The couple stepped out with their daughter during the TriBeCa Film Festival in 2023
"There's nothing like that, when you come back. You have so much more appreciation for what you have, because we know we could not have it," he added.
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The Stiller-Taylor kids
Christine herself opened up about the separation during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2023, during which she said: "Family was always a priority, but I think Ben and I both started to grow in different directions," and added that they "were at this impasse of, 'Let's figure this out, what's best at this chapter in our lives?' That's going back three or four years. And [during] that time apart, we got to know who we are."
"I think we have these growth spurts, even as adults. And we needed time to figure that out," she emphasized.