With the release of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, we’ve been reminiscing on Bridget Jones’s Diary and it’s got us thinking: How are the stars’ love lives doing now?
Renée Zellweger
The Oscar-winning actress has dated several big names throughout her career. Some of which included Jim Carrey, Bradley Cooper and country music star Kenny Chesney. She married the latter in 2005 but filed for an annulment four months later, citing “fraud” as the reason for their split.
However, despite these false starts, Renée, 55, has since settled with her own Mr Darcy, Ant Anstead, a beloved English TV presenter with two kids, Amelie, 21, and Archie, 18. And while engagement rumours have swirled ever since they went public in 2021, the pair are happy keeping things very low-key.
“She’s so incredibly normal and I often forget that she’s famous,” Ant, 45, said about his romance late last year.
Sally Phillips
She plays the potty-mouthed Shazza in the first three flicks and we’re sure there would have been a few expletives thrown around when Sally’s husband of 14 years, the father of her three children, announced he was leaving her for a younger yoga teacher!
Luckily, Sally, 54, got the last laugh. She was introduced to ex-soldier Ian Pilcher through a mutual friend, calling him “to die for” in 2024.
“I am very, very happy with him and I feel very lucky to have had a second chance,” she said.
Colin Firth
While he had the ladies swooning over him during his Bridget Jones, Pride And Prejudice and Love Actually days, Colin was largely a one-woman man.
He married Italian activist Livia Giuggioli in 1997 and the couple had two sons, Luca and Matteo, together.
But underneath their power-couple exterior, the walls of their marriage were sadly crumbling.
During a secret separation between 2015 and 2016, Livia admitted to having an affair with Italian journalist Marco Brancaccia, which eventually crushed any chances of a reconciliation and the pair officially announced their divorce to the world in 2019.
Colin, 64, has since moved on and is now dating TV writer Maggie Cohn. The pair met on the set of The Staircase in 2022 and officially made their red-carpet debut later that year.
Hugh Grant
He was once called the king of rom-coms, but Hugh’s love life has been more drama than comedy.
Who could forget the time he was caught with sex worker Divine Brown while he was dating Elizabeth Hurley in 1995?
Or when, in 2011, he welcomed his first child, Tabitha, with his ex Tinglan Hong and then had a son, John, with his girlfriend Anna Eberstein one year later, before welcoming another son, Felix, with Tinglan within just a few months?
Things haven’t stayed complicated, though, with Hugh going on to marry Anna, 41, in 2018. The pair now have two more children together.
“It’s really nice,” Hugh says of marriage. “I can’t pretend it isn’t.”
Patrick Dempsey
The star of Bridget Jones’s Baby has had quite the tumultuous love life, first generating headlines after he married his manager Rochelle Parker in 1987 – when he was just 21 and she was 48. But things were made all the more scandalous when it was reported that Rochelle was in fact his best friend Corey Parker’s mother! Patrick, 59, maintains he only became best buds with Corey once he became romantically involved with Rochelle.
After that marriage ended in 1994, he went on to wed makeup artist Jillian Fink in 1999, filed for divorce in 2015, before reconciling in 2016. They have three children together.
Bridget Jones’s Diary secrets
Toni Collette was offered the role of Bridget
It’s hard to see Muriel as Bridget, but it almost happened! The role was offered to Toni, but she turned it down to star on Broadway instead.
Renée worked at a real publishing house
To prepare for her role, Renée actually worked at proper publishing house Picador in London for three weeks. Imagine seeing her in the work kitchen!
Colin & Grant’s off-screen rivalry
As Renée stacked on the weight, Colin and Grant reportedly challenged each other to see who could get skinnier in the first film!
Bridget was blamed for low wine sales
“Before Bridget Jones, chardonnay was sexy,” wine writer Oz Clarke says of the drink’s decline. “After, people said, ‘God, not in my bar!’”
Weighing in on Bridget’s weight
Renée was willing to pile the kilos back on for the third flick, but the director wanted to show the audience that she had finally achieved her goal weight.
Stream Bridget Jones’s Diary today on Apple TV+.
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