Love triumphs over every hardship in life, and for Ben Stiller, this became a story too close to his heart. For Stiller, Christine Taylor will always hold a special place in his heart. The “Severance” director, whose hit show earned 27 Emmy nominations in 2025, calls his greatest achievement not his career accolades but finding his way back to the woman he proudly calls his partner for life.
(Photo by Antony Jones/Getty Images)After a painful separation in 2017, Stiller and Taylor reunited, proving that love sometimes needs space to grow stronger.
Stiller Says Time Apart Helped Him Appreciate Family & Marriage
(Photo by Kennedy Pollard/Getty Images for Don Julio Tequila)The actor credits their time apart with showing them just how much their family and marriage truly meant.
“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,” Stiller told The New York Times. “It was like three or four years that we weren’t together but we always were connected.”
Family Bond Helped Bring Them Back Together
(Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for People.com)Stiller, 59, and Taylor share two children: daughter Ella Olivia, 23, and son Quinlin Dempsey, 20. Even while apart, he always believed they could reunite.
“In my mind, I never didn’t want us to be together,” he said. “I don’t know where Christine was, you’d have to ask her, but COVID put us all together in the same house.”
Living under one roof during the pandemic turned out to be the turning point. “It was almost a year of living in the same house before we were actually together,” he explained. “But I’m so grateful for it, and I think not that many people do come back together when they separate.”
Why Their Reunion Means More Today
(Photo by MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty Images)Stiller said their second chance gave him a new level of gratitude. “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.”
Taylor agrees. The couple first met in 1999 on the set of the TV pilot “Heat Vision and Jack” and married the following year. They welcomed Ella in 2002. But after years of growing “in different directions,” the pair decided to separate in 2017.
Christine Taylor on Marriage, Growth & Freedom
(Photo by LISA O\'CONNOR/AFP via Getty Images)Taylor, 54, has since opened up about why the time apart was necessary. “We got married very quickly after meeting each other,” she said on “The Drew Barrymore Show” in 2023. “We knew each other six months, got engaged, married within the year, and had Ella that next year.”
Looking back, Taylor sees the split as part of their evolution. “I feel like when you’ve lived a lifetime with someone like we have—and we learned as we were going along—there’s a freedom in that,” she explained. “There is a freedom in the comfort of this relationship and the commitment.”
Their story proves that sometimes stepping away can be what brings two people closer than ever.
