Why Christine Taylor is 'really comfortable' discussing 2017 separation from Ben Stiller

Marina WattsThu, May 28, 2026 at 6:31 PM UTC

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Christine Taylor in New York in May 2026
Credit: Dia Dipasupil/GettyKey Points -

Christine Taylor is comfortable addressing her separation and eventual reconciliation with husband Ben Stiller.

The couple, who wed in 2000 and share two children, were able to reconnect and work things out during the pandemic through time together and Zoom therapy sessions.

"Life moves at such a rapid pace that we don't often take the time to just pause and say, 'Okay he looked at his stuff, I looked at my stuff,'" Taylor said.

Christine Taylor doesn't mind talking about her separation from Ben Stiller.

The Brady Bunch Movieactress got candid about how she and the Zoolanderstar came to the decision to separate and eventually reconcile during an appearance on the McBride Rewindpodcast.

"I can talk about it now...but in the moment, I mean, it was very difficult to come to that decision. It was not light. It was not without a heavy heart and feeling really, even, dejected at the time of like this is not how I imagined it was going to be and we should have been able to work it out," Taylor began, calling that phase of their relationship "challenging."

"Through it all, we were always in contact. We were co-parenting together. We were spending time together as a family," she added. The actress then mentioned the "silver lining" of the pandemic, where they were "bubbled up together" with their kids Ella and Quinlin. "We all were in the house together, and we had nothing but time," Taylor said.

Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor in New York in May 2026
Credit: John Shearer/WireImage

"So Ben and I spent a lot of time just working on us with a therapist and we'd log into Zoom and we'd do our therapy sessions and really found the way back," Taylor said before acknowledging that separation is something "people don't love to talk about because it feels like a failure."

She continued, "If the right answer for us was that it didn't work, but we were able to figure that out very clearly and focused, then that's great too. Life moves at such a rapid pace that we don't often take the time to just pause and say, 'Okay, he looked at his stuff, I looked at my stuff'... long-term marriages are a lot of work."

Taylor added, "We came out of it and have been really stronger and better than ever. And I feel really comfortable talking about it because I think it's really important for people to feel like that's okay."

Stiller and Taylor met in 1999 and got married the following year. They appeared together onscreen inDodgeball, Zoolander, Tropic Thunder, Zoolander 2, Arrested Development, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

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They separated in 2017 after 17 years of marriage. Stiller confirmed in a 2022 interview with Esquire that they had gotten back together after having spent time together with their children during the pandemic. "We were separated and got back together and we're happy about that. It's been really wonderful for all of us. Unexpected, and one of the things that came out of the pandemic," the actor revealed.

Christine Taylor and Ben Stiller in New York in June 2000
Credit: Robin Platzer/Online USA

The actors previously addressed their separation in the 2025 documentary Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost.

"My career had been going along for a long time but things actually weren't great in my personal life. I just felt out of balance and unhappy and kind of disconnected from my family, from my kids, and just kind of a little bit lost," Stiller admitted in the documentary.

"I do feel like there was history and I think a lot of it was your experience of what that ultimately meant for a relationship that it could put extra strain when you're eating, sleeping, breathing each other in that way," Taylor told Stiller in the film, referring to his famous parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara and their own relationship.

"I also felt like there was a fear from you for me of what that would look like to the outside world. I mean it was very loaded," she added.

Watch Christine Taylor's full interview on The McBride Rewind below.

on Entertainment Weekly

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