Over the summer, it felt like we were inundated with photos of Michelle Williams, Jason Segel and Matilda Ledger. They were in New York and LA, back and forth, back and forth, and suddenly they seemed like an incredibly tight little family unit. There were even widespread reports that Jason had actually proposed to Michelle, although we still haven’t seen anything about confirmed by anyone reputable. Now The Mail claims that Michelle and Jason are definitely taking the next step… they’re buying property together! That does come before engagement these days, doesn’t it?
She had kept the memory of Heath Ledger alive by staying in the house they shared with their beloved daughter. But Michelle Williams is finally moving on from her lost love after leaving the Brooklyn brownstone she bought with the tragic star – and has set up home with her boyfriend, actor Jason Segel.
The Oscar-nominated actress, 32, and Jason, also 32, have moved into a sprawling loft overlooking the Manhattan skyline, MailOnline can reveal. The Brooklyn property, which is situated in a stunning converted warehouse behind gates, marks a fresh start for Michelle, who still owns the house she first bought with Heath in 2005, when their daughter Matilda was a baby. Jason has already been spotted outside their new home with Matilda.
A source said: ‘Michelle, Jason and Matilda seem very happy here, the building is beautiful. They’ve been here a few months now and they look right at home.’
Michelle and Heath bought their brownstone for $3.6 million, but it now believed to be worth up to $4.2 million. The petite blonde was left devastated following Heath’s death in January 2008 from a drugs overdose – five months after they had separated. She has since concentrated on raising Matilda, who will celebrate her seventh birthday on Sunday.
Despite a few short-lived romances, Michelle – who won an Oscar nomination this year for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn – has remained largely single since splitting with Heath. However, she started dating Jason, best known for starring in TV comedy How I Met Your Mother and big screen hits including Knocked Up and The Muppets, earlier this year. The couple are believed to have met through Michelle’s best friend – and Jason’s former Freaks and Geeks costar – actress Busy Philipps.
Friends of Michelle said they had never seen her happier – while Jason told Parade magazine in March: ‘I don’t want to have a girlfriend for the sake of having a girlfriend. I have no desire to pick a random girl.
‘I want the right girl. There are plenty of opportunities, but I would rather have the right one.’
I approve. Not that they’re asking for my approval or anything, but I do think this is a step in the right direction, a healthier direction for Michelle. During her Oscar campaign last year and into this year, I kept getting the feeling that Michelle still feels like she’s very much living with Heath Ledger’s ghost. I don’t mean that in the supernatural way, I mean that in the “she idealized him in death to make him some perfect, untouchable man which no living, breathing man could ever hope to compete with” way. Plus, there was the whole Revirginization of Michelle, which went over like a lead balloon (at least with me). So, it’s nice to see her with a steady boyfriend, moving on physically and emotionally.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and WENN.
I just LOVE Jason Segel, so if (when?) she lands him, they have my all-important blessing! (Yeah, I know, I’m full of myself today. And I REALLY need to get my nails done, because this mess is SEVERELY cutting down on my 65 WPM!)
He meets my “you must be this tall to ride” requirement (yes, I have one – SHUT UP!!) and he strikes me as sweet and goofy. I’m a sucker for sweet and goofy.
Plus, I LOVED Heath, and if there is ANYONE who can attempt to fill that void, it’s Jason.
(Am I the only one who watches Knight’s Tale EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. it comes on?) OK. Just me.
For me, it’s 10 Things I Hate About You. LOVED HIM in that!
He was hysterical in that! So young, and so cute!
A man can change his stars
OMG …. Dying at your “you must be this tall to ride” comment!!!!
I may have to steal it 🙂
@OBella – I always knew you were a kindred spirit. I, too, have a this-tall-to-ride rule and I have extended my sweater over my hands because I simply cannot stand to look at my nails currently.
Given your credentials, than I, too, shall give these kids my blessing. I like him very much and if she makes him happy, I will smile and nod.
j.erye – 🙂 I’m in a shirt that’s like 4 sizes too large, so I can hide my hands! And I LIKE my “must be this tall to ride” rule. (I know it’s not particularly nice, but it works for me.)
Kindred spirits indeed! 😀
HAHAHA you must be this tall to ride!! YES i’m so borrowing this i like ’em man-sized and Jason Segel is man-sized and a goofy sweetheart, according to his character Marshall on HIMYM
I just have a “thing.” I’m tall (almost 5’10”) and I’m opinionated (go figure!) and I want a dude who is taller than me in my 4″ heels! (Becausr tjeu are AWESOME HEELS!0
Is that too much to ask?????? (Hubs managed it at a firm 6’5-6″, and I don’t think that’s unreasonable.)
Seriously Ladies, knock y olursevles out! (F*cking naels!(
I like them together so I hope it’s true.
Me too, I hope they last! Wish them the best!
This is one celeb couple that I actually go ”AWwwwww”” when I see then together..down to earth and just plain cute…its also refreshing to see mathilda unaffected by the paps which is so good to see, in comparison to some celebs children they are constantly aware..
I’m glad she found happiness after her loss. Jason seems like a good guy.
Statistically speaking, it’s a risky, risky move to move another man’s child in with your boyfriend. Child abuse frequently occurs. Please don’t tell me Jason Segal would never do that because we have no way of knowing that.
She needs to either marry him or not move in with him. Stepfathers don’t abuse as frequently as boyfriends.
Wow, I had no idea marriage licenses had such incredible magical properties! Turning men who would otherwise commit sexual abuse into model citizens.
Amazing.
What makes a difference if he’s a stepfather or boyfriend ??
You know, instead of being snarky about the topic, why don’t you do some easy googling and find out the FACTS, which are that children whose mother cohabites with a man are more likely to be abused than children living with fathers or stepfathers. It has nothing to do with “magical properties” but the commitment felt by the man.
People just don’t like hearing these sorts of unpleasant truths, but they are still truths nonetheless.
Here are some links to start you off.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21838575/ns/health-childrens_health/t/children-higher-risk-nontraditional-homes
http://www.sunjournal.com/node/102311
“Statistically speaking?”
Statistics, please.
Sorry, that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
OK I also don’t agree that the marriage license would make things safer, but I do get what you are saying, Bluedog. Kinda. I think that if M brings any man around her daughter she had better be really serious about it first, and know him very very well first. This little girl has already lost her father, does not need a new man coming and then leaving after she has grown attached. Also, nice and clean cut men are capable of terrible things, women must be very careful with their daughters. Better safe than sorry. It does seen like she took her time and got to know J very well, and that’s good.
Wtf? So rushing into marraige will prevent child abuse?
you know what- how about you don’t paint all men with the same brush.
A small percentage of the male population are child abusers etc but the overwhelming majority of them are not.
A percentage of the female population abuse their children, step children or boyfriends children too you know. But the majority don’t.
Don’t blame the majority for the actions of a few. This is why some men are too afraid to be alone with children, even their own. This was why a GOOD man I know was actually afraid to stop a distracted strangers child from running into traffic. of course he did grab the child and take him back to his mother but he was scared of it being misconstrued.
Excuse me? What are you talking about?
Oh! So, a marriage contract is what turns a child predator into a good and respectful father figure?
Love and marriage don’t necessary go together.
Statistically speaking? What statists are those?
I like him, but…32? Wow. Okay.
It’s high time everybody stopped acting like Heath and Michelle were together when he died. He hooked up with several women after they broke up and two months before he died he was happily involved with Gemma Ward with who he spent his winter holidays in his hometown in Australia as a couple. She dated Spike Jonze after he died. They were in the midst of a custody battle that caused him great distress. They were only speaking through lawyers when he died. Not like she’s his widow or anything. He had moved on at the time of his death and she did after too, she just used his death for her Oscar campaigns and for the PR that relationship got her.
Totally agree.
She didn’t seem to have moved on.
It seemed they were very much in love yet he was starting to spiral and she tough loved him out of the house.
He hadn’t seemed to move on either. He was certainly moving through some, but clearly not moving on.
They might not have been married or at that moment together, but he was the man she had just separated from and the father of her new baby. That makes her widow-like to me.
Just because she didn’t let him drug it up in a house with a new baby, doesn’t mean she didn’t love him, just that she loved Matilda more
+1
This so much. I don’t get why people think she wouldn’t have a right to grieve…
+2
I grieved horribly for a few years after a boyfriend, who had dumped me the year before, was killed in a car crash. Thirty years later and I still dream about him.
That’s tabloid nonsense. They were over for months and months when they announced the breakup. H.L. was seen more than once engaging in pda with a brunette model before Matilda was even born. If he had truly been in love with Michelle he would’ve stayed faithful not cheated so soon. If it weren’t for the very quick pregnancy they wouldn’t have made it to 18 months. They were faaaar from in love when they called it quits.
Lem – THANK YOU. I’ve got friends (yes, more than one) who’ve had kids with jerks and addicts, who have later wound up dead, either by accidents or their addictions or both.
It doesn’t denigrate the loss of a parent (however present or not in said child’s life) or the loss of a loved one (however f*cked up said loved one may be) that they were apart at the time of death.
It simply IS. And there is mourning, and grieving, and a sense of loss (no matter how tangent the relationship), because that person was (is) a LOVED ONE.
ITA. I hate how she’s portrayed as the grieving widow.
I think this is true. Nobody cared about her at all, professionally, until she got with Heath. I also think Jason is only with her because of the whole Heath mystique, and following in his steps. Meeting Heath and having his child was the best professional move she will ever make. I loved Heath in his movies and Jason is a cool guy. I don’t watch her in anything, meh. She seems boring to me. & very fake-ish.
I don’t think she got anything professionally out of being with Heath. Except that maybe, when he died, mainstream took slightly more interest in her short term. She didn’t build a career in his death or on having his child. She clearly has no desire to be mainstream. Therefore, not much advantage in her career. Also, she seems very put-off by the mainstream media attempts at pigeon holing her relationship with Heath.
If, IF, if she were in it to famewhore we would have seen a very different woman. She fled. She hid. She didn’t Oprah, or Barbara, or GMA tears across America. She didn’t try to use his death as a platform to garner attention (lalohan did).
I won’t disagree without Matilda they probably would not have been engaged or lasted as long as they did. However, that is about love. Not about career hoarding.
As far as him making out, dating, vacationing blah blah blah with other girls. Big flippin whoop. I’ve slept with one man when another broke my heart. I’ve kissed guys I *gasp* didn’t love. I’ve had my picture taken on a beach with men I barely knew. How does he, acting like a rebounder, at that time he OD’d equate in your mind that she had/ has no right to grieve?
I don’t care for her acting or her personality either. But I don’t see how you can accuse her of being anything other than human under personal tragedy. She certainly didn’t court press to profit from his suicide. That’s ludicrous
+1
Just because they weren’t together doesn’t make it easier to lose your child’s father.
+10000!!!!
I think you’re missing the larger point: They weren’t together because of his drug use/abuse. She couldn’t have that, especially around her daughter. She tried. She couldn’t deal.
It doesn’t matter who he was doing or what he was using when he died.
What matters is that she loved him, he was her daughter’s father, and he died unexpectedly.
I totally agree. I always thought they looked miserable together. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant within 6 months of meeting him, I doubt they would have lasted even as long as they did (couple of years). And I think they were living apart for the last 6 months too — with the baby being shuttled back and forth between LA and NY to visit each parent. It looked like it had been long over by the time he dumped her.
But, every article/interview with her brings him up AGAIN. It’s gotten really tiresome, and also unseemly because it makes her look like she’s just milking it for her own interests. If she’s not doing it on purpose, then she’s at least doing it subconsciously. Enough already.
Good to see that smile on Michelle’s face. Puts a smile on mine!
Why does she dress so old fashioned and so “old” in general. She used to be so pretty and young, she still is young but is being this spinsterish character. I hate that, really. Jason is awesome, seems like a very great catch! Hope they make cute babies together.
Doesn’t Matilta seem like she’s getting big? Soon she will be much taller than her mother. She completely takes after Heath’s side. Nothing about Michelle in that child.
i love him! i like them together. he seems to love and care for matilda also. some of the posts are really inappropriate. to go out on a limb, and say he could be abusive is offensive. not even knowing who he is. there are great men out there, who do love a woman who has kids. and love the child, and treats them well. granted, there are stories of abuse when a new guy comes into the picture. but that’s not what’s happening here. they’re a family, michelle hit the lottery here. good for them !!
Happy for them, as they deserve happiness. Lily is gonna be SO pissed though xD