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Ben Stiller is known for his humor, but it was his sincerity that helped him reconcile with Christine Taylor.
The Zoolander actor told The New York Times in a profile published on Saturday, January 11 that taking his separation from his estranged wife seriously was the key to getting back together.
“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. “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.”
“I don’t know where Christine was, you’d have to ask her, but COVID put us all together in the same house,” the Meet the Parents star continued, noting that it took “almost a year of living in the same house before [they] were actually together” again.
The Severance director said, “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.”
Stiller, 59, and Taylor, 53, married in 2000 and welcomed two children — Ella, 22, and Quinlin, 19 — before separating in 2017. They ultimately announced that they reconciled in 2022.
Taylor revealed on a March 2023 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show that she felt they “got married very quickly after meeting each other” which led them “to grow in different directions.”
She also echoed Stiller’s sentiment that they both took their separation seriously and “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 explained. “I feel like we needed some time to figure that out.”
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