GROWING PAINS

Ben Stiller Reveals Why He Split From Wife for 4 Years

Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor separated in 2017 and later reconciled during the pandemic.

Actor Ben Stiller has revealed why he and his wife, actress Christine Taylor, separated for four years.

“It was like three or four years that we weren’t together but we always were connected,” he said in a profile with The New York Times. “In my mind, I never didn’t want us to be together.”

Stiller revealed that his marriage with Taylor “wasn’t in a great place” after 2016’s Zoolander 2. “There was a lot going on,” he 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,” he continued.

Stiller revealed that he and Taylor started living together again in 2020 because of the pandemic, but were still separated.

“It was almost a year of living in the same house before we were actually together,” he said. “But I’m so grateful for it, and I think not that many people do come back together when they separate.”

Stiller married his Zoolander co-star in 2000. The couple share daughter Ella, 22, and son Quinlin, 19.

Taylor previously opened up about their relationship on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2023.

“I think Ben and I both started to grow in different directions,” she said. “And when we made the decision to separate, it was not something we wanted to talk publicly about or took lightly.”

Taylor added that once the pandemic began, she and Stiller had “so much time to talk” with “no other distractions,” and were able to fix their relationship.