did you know paul bettany married jennifer connelly because of 9/11
thanks, osama
At a birthday party a couple weeks ago I met a couple with a great story. The woman’s mom ate at a restaurant where the man was a cute waiter and she, the mom, said something along the lines of, “my daughter is single, look her up on Facebook,” and the future lovers chatted for a bit and then met up and on their very first date, the woman told the man that they were going to get married, and he was like, “suuuuuure.” And then a week later she moved in and a month after that, they got married, and now they’ve been together for fourteen years and have four kids. She just knew! They were really cool and I wish I could remember their names. She had tattoos.
I love when people just cut to the feeling, and my favorite story, which I want to talk about always, is Paul Bettany realizing he was in love with his now-wife Jennifer Connelly on September 11, 2001. As the story goes, they were both in relationships with other people when they met on the set of A Beautiful Mind where they totally didn’t hook up or date or have an affair at all! In any case, they were actually not in a serious some months later when Bettany, on vacation in Italy, noticed rather a hubbub around the television at a local café and, in his telling, he pulled up to the commotion just in time to see the second plane hit the South Tower. And he had an epiphany, and that epiphany was, I am in love with Jennifer Connelly and must marry her! And like, Bettany is British, this wasn’t even one of his towers. I don’t mean to make light of a national tragedy but this is literally what happened. So he called her on the phone and said something along the lines of, “hi Jen, when I get back to New York, let’s get married,” and she was like, “sounds good.” AND THEY DID. YOU CAN LOOK IT UP.
SHE WAS HIS CHILDHOOD CRUSH.
I MEAN!!!!!
Anyway. At the risk of doing what I do for work (writing about celebrities) for fun (this newsletter), I think you all deserve some more lightly deranged but utterly wonderful stories of celebrities simply deciding who they wanted to marry and then making it happen.
Jamie Lee Curtis picked Christopher Guest out of a magazine.
Victoria Podesta met Peter Logan at JURY DUTY. They are not famous and they are also not together anymore but they ARE my parents and really, what is the point of love if not to create ME?
All of which is to say, Natalie Portman, you’re gonna make it.
Shoot your shot, homies!
Lizzie