Natalie Portman is pretty famous for all the onscreen antics she has pulled, but did you know she once even reportedly broke up a marriage without being aware of it? As surprising as that may seem, it’s only true, having happened more than two decades ago. The person whose marriage broke up was Jonathan Safran Foer, an author and a good friend of Portman.
As explained by @skylerguns on Instagram, Portman immediately became a fan of Foer when his first book, Everything Is Illuminated, was released back in 2002. It was based on a young American Jew’s search for his family’s past in Ukraine. Soon after, the two formed a friendship, emailing back and forth to communicate, with their bond lasting over the course of the next 15 years.
A post shared by Skylerguns (@skylerguns)
In fact, they established such ‘friendship goals’ with their bond that not only was the actress inspired to go vegan by one of his books, but she even signed on to narrate the documentary Eating Animals, which was based on his book. Between the two, “things were fine and cool and they had a good friendship… until 2015,” as @skylerguns explained in his video.
In 2015, news broke out that the author divorced his wife at the time, fellow author Nicole Krauss, with rumors soon spreading that he left his wife because of Portman. Reports, later on, claimed that he confessed to being in love with Portman to Krauss as well (via National Post). Just like that, Portman ended up breaking a marriage without even knowing about it!
Natalie Portman Was Unaware of Breaking Jonathan Safran Foerʼs Marriage
In the clip, the Instagram handle went on to reveal that, before leaving his then-wife, Jonathan Safran Foer reportedly told Krauss who he was leaving her for. As shared by @skylerguns,
It eventually came out that Jonathan told his wife that he was in love with a famous movie star and left her. But when he told Natalie Portman about this, she was like, ‘Uh, no, I- What are you talking about?’ She had zero clue about any of this, and she was married at the time!
Plus, for those who might be thinking that it was Portman who must have led him on, here’s the truth: Foer even released some of their emails in a New York Times article to clear the air on the matter when rumors started surfacing that his marriage broke up because of the actress. As the Instagram handle pointed out about those emails:
They were totally normal emails, except for the fact that Jonathan was kind of a little bit odd, and nothing in the emails would indicate that Natalie was into him, at all… You can read the emails yourself that he chose to publish, and nothing in there indicated anything romantic at all, at least from Natalie’s end.
So, in a way, it appears to be true that Foer’s marriage broke up because of Portman. But did she willingly participate in dooming Foer and Krauss’ bond? Well, looking at those emails, it certainly doesn’t seem like it.
Plus, in an interview with AP soon after the release of the emails – which were notably full of pretentious musings on memory and freedom; not to mention, the nature of Jewish melancholy – Natalie Portman was barely sweating it as she cleared the air on the matter. With a laugh, she candidly told the outlet (via The Cut),
It’s like, I guess you caught me! I’m a nerd! It was clearly for an interview. I can understand that it would seem funny if those were our normal ‘hey Jonathan, what’s going on’ emails, which is not the case at all … It’s not what we write on a Tuesday afternoon. Obviously.
That further clears her name of being the celebrity who allegedly broke another celebrity’s marriage, since Portman herself was clearly not interested in the same.
Meanwhile, Natalie Portman Herself Divorced Her Husband Over Infidelity
While her friend Jonathan Safran Foer’s reportedly falling in love with her and leaving his wife was one thing, a few years later, Natalie Portman ended up becoming a victim of a similar situation. This happened when she divorced her husband of 11 years, Benjamin Millepied, in 2024, after quietly separating a year before.
According to PEOPLE, Portman filed for a divorce in July 2023. It was finalized in February 2024 in France, where she lived with her then-husband and two children, son Aleph and daughter Amalia. In 2023, media reports surfaced claiming that Millepied reportedly had an extramarital affair while he was married to Portman (per Voici).
Portman and Millepied had met more than a decade ago, in 2010, on the sets of the movie Black Swan, and had tied the knot in 2012. When reports about Millepied’s infidelity surfaced, a source claimed to PEOPLE that the two were working through their marital struggles, claiming,
[The extramarital affair] was short-lived, and it is over. He knows he made an enormous mistake, and he is doing all he can to get Natalie to forgive him and keep their family together. Natalie is incredibly private and has no intention of playing this out in the media. Her biggest priority is protecting her children and their privacy.
However, things evidently couldn’t really work out, considering how the pair eventually ended up parting ways. Although the couple has since maintained an amicable co-parenting for their children, media reports also claimed at the time that navigating through the separation was not easy for Portman. A friend of the couple claimed to PEOPLE,
It was initially really tough for her, but her friends rallied around her and helped get her through the worst of it. Natalie is coming out of a really tough and painful year, but she’s come out the other side of it stronger and is finding joy in her family, friends, and work.
Per a report from a Life & Style insider, she leaned on Reese Witherspoon during the hard time. Notably, Witherspoon herself went through a similar situation during her split from Jim Toth in March 2023, after being married to him for 11 years.
With that said, the actress has since moved on. According to reports from earlier this year, Natalie Portman now appears to be romantically involved with Tanguy Destable, a French musician and music producer, known as Tepr in the music world.
As for Millepied, he was reportedly spotted getting cozy with a mystery woman in Paris back in October 2024, just months after his divorce from Portman was finalized (via E! News).
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