Ben Stiller is opening up about why he and his wife decided to separate for a few years in 2017.
During a recent interview with The New York Times, the 59-year-old actor shared the reason behind the brief separation between him and his wife, Christine Taylor, starting in 2017.
“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,” he told the outlet.
He went on to explain that although their separation lasted “three or four years,” the two of them remained “connected” the entire time.
BEN STILLER DOUBTS IF ‘TROPIC THUNDER’ WOULD BE MADE TODAY, SAYS ‘EDGIER COMEDY’ IS ‘HARDER’ TO DO
The couple met in 1999 when Taylor auditioned for a show Stiller was directing, and made their red carpet debut later that year at the MTV Movie Awards. They got married a year later in May 2000, during a ceremony in Kauai, Hawaii, welcoming their first child Ella just two years later in April 2002 and their son Quinlin in July 2005.
After 17 years of marriage, the couple announced through a joint statement to People, they had decided to separate, stating, “Our priority will continue to be raising our children as devoted parents and the closest of friends.”
Although they decided to separate, Stiller tells The New York Times, “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 explained. “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.”
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
“There’s nothing like that when you come back,” he continued. “You have so much more appreciation for what you have, because we know we could not have it.”
Stiller and Taylor were spotted out together multiple times throughout their separation period, most notably when she joined the actor as his date for the 2019 Emmy Awards, where he was nominated for his role in “Escape at Dannemora.”
The actor confirmed they had ended their separation when discussing his relationship in a 2022 interview with Esquire, where he explained that accepting their differences was key in their reconciliation, saying doing so helps to “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,” he continued. “‘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.'”
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER
Taylor has also spoken about their time apart, telling “The Drew Barrymore Show” in March 2023, that she and Stiller realized they had “both started to grow in different directions” and “needed some time to figure that out.” The pandemic ultimately gave them the opportunity to have conversations they otherwise would not be able to, with “no other distractions.”
“I feel like when you’ve lived a lifetime with someone like we have — and we learned as we were going along — there’s a freedom in that,” she concluded. “There is a freedom in the comfort of this relationship and the commitment.”
