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“In my mind, I never didn’t want us to be together,” the Zoolander actor shared before detailing what made getting back together so special.
Ben Stiller is opening up about his relationship with his wife, Christine Taylor.
In a new interview with The New York Times, Stiller, explained how separating from Taylor helped the couple find their way back to each other and value their marriage even more.
“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,” Stiller said. “It was like three or four years that we weren’t together but we always were connected. In my mind, I never didn’t want us to be together.”
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Christine Taylor Talks Rekindling Marriage with Ben Stiller During Pandemic
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The actors — who wed in 2000 and share two kids, daughter Ella, 22, and son Quinlin, 19 — separated in 2017 but reconciled during the pandemic, after they’d moved back in together.
“I don’t know where Christine was, you’d have to ask her, but COVID put us all together in the same house,” the Severance director explained, noting it was “almost a year of living in the same house before we were actually together” again.
“But I’m so grateful for it, and I think not that many people do come back together when they separate,” he gushed. “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.”
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Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor Rekindled Marriage During Quarantine Nearly 5 Years After Split
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Stiller first revealed that he and Taylor reconciled in February 2022, telling Esquire at the time, “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.”
Taylor opened up about their separation while on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2023, admitting that she and Stiller “got married very quickly after meeting each other” and eventually “started to grow in different directions.”
Their separation, she said, was “not something we took lightly” and despite separating as a couple, they “always stayed a family unit.”
“It was sort of like we were both at this impasse of ‘let’s figure out what’s best: What’s best for each other at this chapter in our lives?’ … That time apart for each of us to sort of get to know who we are — I think we have these growth spurts even as adults,” she said at the time. “I feel like we needed some time to figure that out.”
After reconciling, Taylor said she and Stiller are “so good” and realized that their “history” together provided the pair with a level of “freedom and comfort.”
