Christine Taylor opened up about her “very difficult” and “heavy” separation from Ben Stiller in 2017, describing how they paused their marriage after struggling to “make it fit.” The couple later rekindled during the COVID-19 pandemic through therapy, and Tay
Christine Taylor remembers the moment the marriage didn’t just end—it paused. Not a clean break. Not a hopeful detour. She calls it “very difficult” and “heavy,” a decision made with a “heavy heart,” even as she and Ben Stiller tried to work out what they couldn’t feel was working.
Taylor spoke about that 2017 separation on Josh McBride’s “The McBride Rewind” podcast on May 26. She said the couple “got back together” and “found our way back during COVID. ” laying out how the two had started to drift even while they kept working. “Kids always have growth spurts and you have different chapters and stages in your life,” she explained. “You get married. become a mom…put your career on hold. all those different chapters. ” and she said. at the time. “we were just not on the same page with a lot of things.”.
She didn’t describe a dramatic rupture so much as a steady strain—two people “working so hard to make it fit and make it right. ” until “when we zoomed out on it. ” it felt like. “Let’s just put a pause here.” She told listeners she can talk about it now. but that getting to the decision had been “challenging.” “It was not light. ” Taylor said. “It was not without a heavy heart and feeling even dejected at the time. ” thinking it wasn’t what she imagined. and that they “should be able to work it out.”.
During the separation, Taylor said they kept “space,” but they didn’t disappear from each other’s lives. She emphasized that they were “always in contact, coparenting and spending time together as a family.” That structure mattered: the marriage may have been paused, but the family stayed intact.
Then quarantine brought something they hadn’t had before—time. Taylor described Ella’s high school graduation during quarantine and Quinlin finishing eighth grade. “We all were in the house together and we had nothing but time, nothing but time,” she said. With schedules forced to slow down. she and Stiller worked with a therapist. logging onto Zoom for sessions and rebuilding from within. “Really found the way back,” Taylor added. If she’s looking for any bright side, she called it “the little gift.”.
Her account also touched a stigma that surrounds breakups: she said relationship breaks are “something people don’t love to talk about because it feels like a failure.” But in her story. that failure label never stuck. After the hard pause, she believes the outcome was different—coming out “stronger and better than ever.”.
Taylor said they still make room for one another. She shared a recent example: Ben Stiller drove five hours to visit her on set in Montreal. “I feel really lucky that we found our way back for us,” she said.
The timeline of their relationship stretches back further than the headlines about their separation. Taylor met Stiller in 1999 while working on “Heat Vision and Jack,” a Fox sitcom that never aired. They married less than a year later, on May 13, 2000, in Kauai, Hawaii, at an oceanfront wedding.
What makes Taylor’s recollection land isn’t just that the couple separated and later reunited—it’s how she describes the emotional weight of choosing to stop. and the careful work that followed. In her telling. the pause came when they weren’t “on the same page. ” and the return happened when there was enough time to sit with the hard parts—together. through therapy. and as a family with Ella and Quinlin.
Christine Taylor Ben Stiller separation rekindled during COVID therapy Ella Stiller Quinlin Stiller Josh McBride podcast “The McBride Rewind”