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Ben Stiller opened up about his marriage in a new interview, revealing how he and his wife reconciled during lockdown.
Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor married 25 years ago in May 2000 after they first met in 1999 while working on Heat Vision and Jack.
The actors were married for 17 years but separated in 2017, after growing ‘in different directions’.
Ben, 59, has now revealed in an interview that he and Christine, 53, were separated for ‘three or four years’ but were brought back together during the pandemic.
‘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.
‘It was like three or four years that we weren’t together but we always were connected,’ he told The New York Times. He then admitted that despite the separation, he was always determined to make it work.
‘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.’
He added that he was ‘so grateful’ that they were able to work things out and has a lot more appreciation for their relationship.
‘Yeah. 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. 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 said.
Christine is best known for playing Marcia Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie and has appeared in movies including Craft, The Wedding Singer, Zoolander, and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
Christine also spoke about her separation from Ben while appearing on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2024.
‘We got married very quickly after meeting each other. we knew each other six months, got engaged, we were married within a year and had Ella the next year,’ she said.
‘Family was always a priority, but I think Ben and I both sort of started to grow in different directions, and when we made the decision to separate, it was not something we wanted to talk publicly about, it was not something we took lightly either.’
She added the time apart to get to know each other was important as they had ‘growth spurts — even as adults — and I feel like we needed just some time to figure that out.’
She explained that they ‘found their way back’ during lockdown because there were no ‘distractions’ and they had time to properly talk.
In 2022, the couple confirmed they had reunited. Ben told Esquire that they moved in together during lockdown so they could both be with their children.
‘Then, over the course of time, it evolved,’ he said. ‘We were separated and got back together and we’re happy about that. It’s been really wonderful for all of us.
‘Unexpected, and one of the things that came out of the pandemic.’
He explained the key to making their marriage work: ‘I think we have a respect for the ways that we’re similar and the ways we’re different. And I think accepting that, you can really appreciate someone more because you’re not trying to get them to change for you.
‘Once you accept that, you save a lot of energy. “This is something that works for me; this is something that doesn’t work for me.” If you have that trust level with your partner, you know that me saying “I don’t like doing that thing” is not me saying ‘I don’t like you.’
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