In 2017, Ben Stiller and his wife Christine Taylor made the decision to separate after 17 years, only to end up getting back together a few years later. In a New York Times interview published on January 11, 2025, Ben opened up about how the four-year separation strengthened his relationship with Christine.
From his perspective, he never saw the separation as something permanent. The Zoolander actor still wanted to be with his wife Christine, but they both needed some space to understand themselves and their relationship.
“In my mind, I never didn’t want us to be together,” Ben Stiller told the New York Times.
Ben and Christine separated for four years, but remained “connected” since they were co-parenting kids Ella and Quinlin. During a 2023 appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, Christine explained that even during their break, they “always stayed a family unit and always continued to do things together.”
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“During that time apart, we got to know who we are,” Christine said at the time. She and Ben “got married very quickly after meeting each other,” which meant that they “both started to grow in different directions.”
But ending up in the same house with their children as they isolated during the pandemic meant that they finally had the time they needed to talk “with no other distractions.”
The break gave them time to think about their relationship — and also appreciate it more, Ben explained during the recent interview. “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 said.
Even when Ben and Christine were physically close again, he said it took “almost a year of living in the same house” during the pandemic before actually getting back together — something he said he’s “so grateful for.”
“I think not that many people do come back together when they separate,” he admitted. “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.”
