Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor Decide To Split After 17 Years Of Marriage


Actor, comedian, and filmmaker Ben Stiller and his wife, Christine Taylor, have jointly announced that they are calling it quits after 17 years of marriage. According to ET Online, who first broke the news, the couple announced their decision to split to the publication in a joint statement that was sent to Entertainment Tonight on Friday.

An excerpt from the statement read as follows.

“With tremendous love and respect for each other and the 18 years we spent together as a couple, we have made the decision to separate. Our priority will continue to be raising our children as devoted parents and the closest of friends. We kindly ask that the media respect our privacy at this time.”

The 51-year-old Stiller and 45-year-old Christine have two kids.

Stiller and Christine first met during the filming of a TV pilot called Heat Vision. While the series never made it to TV, the couple started dating and tied the knot back in May of 2000 at a ceremony in Hawaii. Before dating Christine, Stiller was known to have dated several actresses including Jeanne Tripplehorn, Calista Flockhart, and Amanda Peet. In a 2007 interview, Stiller had described how he felt about Christine during the early days of their romance.

“When I met her, I pretty much thought, ‘That’s the person.’ It was like, ‘Wow, this is a great person. I love her.'”

The couple was blessed with two children, Ella Olivia, the daughter who was born in April, 2002, and son Quinlin Dempsey, who they welcomed in July, 2005. During their 17-year marriage, the couple shared the screen through multiple projects. While people will easily remember the latest film, Zoolander 2, the other projects where the couple made joint appearances include Zoolander, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Tropic Thunder, and Arrested Development.

Christine Taylor and Ben Stiller at the AFI Fest premiere of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” in 2013 [Image by John Shearer/Invision/AP Images]

The couple’s decision to part ways has come just months after Ben Stiller revealed back in November, 2016, that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer two years ago. Thanks to early diagnosis and quick treatment, he is currently cancer free. When asked about his experience with cancer on the Howard Stern show, Stiller said he was initially scared and had no idea what to do when the news was first announced to him.

“It came out of the blue for me. I had no idea. At first, I didn’t know what was gonna happen. I was scared. It just stopped everything in your life because you can’t plan for a movie because you don’t know what’s gonna happen.

“As I learned more about my disease (one of the key learnings is not to Google ‘people who died of prostate cancer’ immediately after being diagnosed with prostate cancer), I was able to wrap my head around the fact that I was incredibly fortunate. Fortunate because my cancer was detected early enough to treat. And also because my internist gave me a test he didn’t have to.”

Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor in July 2012, in Los Angeles. [Image by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP Images]

Ben Stiller was born on November 20, 1965, in New York City to comedian-actor couple Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. Stiller has a Jewish background and belongs to a family that emigrated from Poland to the U.S. His mother had an Irish Catholic background and later converted to Reform Judaism. The family did not consider themselves very religious.

Born on July 30, 1971, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Joan and Albert E. “Skip” Taylor III, Christine Taylor spent a good part of her life in Wescosville, Pennsylvania. She has a brother named Brian Taylor. Her father ran a security company in the area. After starting her career as an actor in 1989, she got an opportunity to work with Nickelodeon on children’s television series Hey Dude. She also played Marcia Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie. Christine also made guest appearances on Seinfeld and Friends.

[Featured Image by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP Images]

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