It’s interesting that People Magazine didn’t put Natalie Portman’s marriage drama on their cover, especially given that Portman’s team gave People an exclusive. Late last week, a French tabloid published photos of Benjamin Millepied meeting up with 25-year-old Camille Etienne. The French tabloid reported that the affair had happened recently and that it was known within certain circles that Natalie and Benjamin have been going through some marriage trouble for the past year, and may have even separated at one point. People Mag’s exclusive (from Portman’s team) basically confirmed Benjamin’s affair, but a source insisted that “it was short-lived and it is over.” Another source said that Millepied “knows he made an enormous mistake and he is doing all he can to get Natalie to forgive him and keep their family together.” Like, People Mag could have spun that out into a full cover story. They chose not to. Probably because they hope to still get some exclusives from Portman.
Meanwhile, Us Weekly knows they aren’t getting any official confirmations from Portman’s team, so they’re just leaning into their tabloid reporting. Their sources paint Natalie as “humiliated.” Is she?
Moving forward. Natalie Portman is attempting to stay positive after her husband, Benjamin Millepied, was accused of having an affair. The No Strings Attached actress, 41, felt “humiliated” amid allegations of the director, 45, cheating with a younger woman, a source exclusively reveals in the new issue of Us Weekly.
Despite being hurt by Millepied’s alleged infidelity, Portman is remaining committed to her marriage. “Natalie believes Benjamin’s affair was a brief and stupid liaison that means nothing to him,” the insider adds.
The couple exchanged vows in 2012 and share two children: Aleph, 11, and Amalia, 6. According to the source, Portman is “willing to see if she’s capable of rebuilding her trust” in her husband to ensure that their kids don’t “grow up in a broken home.”
A second insider, however, tells Us that the Oscar winner “doesn’t know” whether she and Millepied will repair their relationship post-scandal. “Right now, they are talking and working on it together for the sake of their children,” the source explains, noting that Millepied “regrets” his actions.
I will never understand women with wealth, power and access arguing that they need to stay with a scumbag or cheater for their children’s sake. Never. Yes, everyone should do what’s right for them, but if you have the money, power and access to leave a sh-tty man, do that. Do that for the sake of your kids, because no child wants to be the “reason” why their mom is stuck in an unhappy or unhealthy situation. But really, I think Natalie is staying with Benjamin because of her own sh-t.
Photos courtsy of Instar, Cover Images, Avalon Red.
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- North America Rights Only – Los Angeles, USA -20220327- Vanity Fair Oscar Dinner held at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California -PICTURED: Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied -PHOTO by: INSTARimages.com Disclaimer: This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact INSTAR Images for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207. This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. INSTAR Images reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded For images containing underage children: Be advised that some Countries may have restricted privacy laws against publishing images of underage children. Inform yourself! Underage children may need to be removed or have their face pixelated before publishing
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- Benjamin Millepied, Natalie Portman at L.A. Dance Project’s Annual Gala at Hauser & Wirth. Los Angeles, California – Friday October 19, 2019. Photograph: © Joe Sutter/PacificCoastNews. Los Angeles Office (PCN): +1 310.822.0419 UK Office (Avalon): +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 sales@pacificcoastnews.com,Image: 539743938, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Los Angeles Office (PCN): +1 310.822.0419 UK Office (Avalon): +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 sales@pacificcoastnews.com, Model Release: no, Credit line: Joe Sutter/PacificCoastNews / Avalon
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- BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – OCTOBER 16: Choreographer/dancer Benjamin Millepied and wife/actress Natalie Portman arrive at the L.A. Dance Project 2021 Gala – Unforgettable Evening Under The Stars held at The Pritzker Estate on October 16, 2021 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 638331908, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Benjamin Millepied, Natalie Portman, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
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- Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied attends ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ – UK Gala Screening at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square in London, England. UK. Tuesday 6th July 2022. -,Image: 705443554, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NORESTRICTIONS, Model Release: no, Pictured: ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ – UK Gala Screening, Credit line: James Warren / Bang Showbiz / Avalon
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- Natalie Portman photographed during the photocall for May December as part of the 76th Cannes International Film Festival at Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France on 21 May 2023.,Image: 777919721, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Julie Edwards / Avalon
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- Paris, FRANCE – Actress Natalie Portman puts on a brave face to watch the French L1 football match between Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Clermont Foot 63 at the Parc des Princes Stadium in Paris, France. Natalie and her husband Benjamin Millepied are in the headlines after it was revealed that Benjamin had an extramarital affair! Pictured: Natalie Portman BACKGRID USA 3 JUNE 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: Best Image / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Paris, FRANCE – Actress Natalie Portman puts on a brave face to watch the French L1 football match between Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Clermont Foot 63 at the Parc des Princes Stadium in Paris, France. Natalie and her husband Benjamin Millepied are in the headlines after it was revealed that Benjamin had an extramarital affair! Pictured: Natalie Portman BACKGRID USA 3 JUNE 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: Best Image / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Paris, FRANCE – Actress Natalie Portman puts on a brave face to watch the French L1 football match between Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Clermont Foot 63 at the Parc des Princes Stadium in Paris, France. Natalie and her husband Benjamin Millepied are in the headlines after it was revealed that Benjamin had an extramarital affair! Pictured: Natalie Portman BACKGRID USA 3 JUNE 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: Best Image / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- May December premiere during the 76th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France. Featuring: Natalie Portman Where: Cannes, France When: 20 May 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
I’m sure the person he was with when he got with her was humiliated too. You know what they say about cheaters.
Exactly….
UGH to the misogyny in US weekly’s take on this. Of course, a woman who is 40 years old must be “humiliated“ when her husband cheats with a younger woman. Angry, yes. Hurt, yes. Not sure if the relationship is repairable, Yes. But the idea that women should be responsible for their partner’s straying is so 50 years ago. We’re well beyond “she couldn’t keep her man happy.”
She would only be humiliated if she stayed with him after he proves himself a dog repeatedly. Oh, wait . . .
Exactly. Why should she be humiliated? She’s not the one who cheated.
THANK YOU!!!!! This has seemed misogynistic and ridiculous to me for decades. I always think “What does SHE need to feel humiliated for?!?! ” UGH!
This sounds like a bunch of speculation based on what most women feel like when they’ve discovered infidelity, rather than anything specific to Natalie. I do hope things work out for them one way or another, it’s irksome to be in the middle of this kind of press speculation.
I couldn’t be poly or in an open marriage, but I’m a realist who lives in this world and I know that plenty of people can and do and are – and I’m always kind of surprised that people don’t consider that as a possibility in cases like these. Especially in a marriage like this where you have two people who both have a history of cheating and stepping out etc. and who both have big, all encompassing careers that take them all over the world for long stretches of time? I mean, isn’t it just as likely as not that no one is “humiliated” and that understandings were/are had about what they can and can’t do that we’ll never know about because we’re not in their marriage? It seems just as likely as not that no one is “embarrassed” about anything besides the fact that maybe a brief situationship got photographed and plastered everywhere?
I agree with this take.
The industry is full of open marriages, don’t-ask-don’t-tell, what happens on set stays on set, kind of things.
The general rule I’ve always heard in the rumor mill is “don’t embarrass me”, and that’s what happened here.
I thought the same thing. She doesn’t seem humiliated and isn’t hiding away, or doing performative happy couple stuff, maybe their relationship is not monogamous? Maybe they have an agreement? Who knows. And really it’s no one’s business but theirs.
Yeah she knew what she was getting into marrying a French man…
But I digress, I agree that she’s not acting like a scorned woman here. She seems pretty blase about the whole thing which leads me to speculate that they do have some sort of an arrangement.
I agree. If there was any humiliation, it probably came from the public nature of the “affair”. They might have an arrangement, but I doubt the kids (or the public) are privy to it.
Even if it was monogamous, is it “cheating” if they were on a break? The age-old “Friends” question…
I doubt they had an arrangement because in the People article that came from her PR team, Page Six article, and even this one, they all have the same note of Benjamin apologizing and begging for her forgiveness and that the other relationship is over. If they had an open relationship, then he wouldn’t need to break up with the other woman, nor would he be groveling and begging for her forgiveness.
I think Natalie is smart, and knowing that she was the other woman, her appearing as a woman scorned or trying to go to the media route for sympathy, but not work best for her.
I do agree that the humiliation comes from it being public.
No idea if Natalie is in an open marriage, but I think the Hollywood couples that are know they still have to present to the public as being monogamous. So the quotes about it being short lived and him apologizing could just be serving their public image, not necessarily what is actually happening behind the scenes.
Especially if they were separated, which it sounds like they might have been?
Having been in a poly relationship, I can say that most people in the world are absolutely not cool with having an open one. Like hoooooooo boy did i ever hear so much shit about it back in the day.
I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but to describe her initially as the actress in No Strings Attached Vs her academy award winning performance in Black Swan, nominated three times, huge role in Thor – such massive shade to me.
Yes! Like “oh if she was in a movie called No Strings Attached she should have expected this” or something. At first I thought it was because it was maybe the last film she was in but clearly not!
I think they were just trying to be clever.
The children would very likely be far happier growing up with two healthy happy homes than one where even if their parents are not fighting there will clearly be tension and issues. Whether this is her rationale or not it’s probably nonsense.
+ 1,000. My mom repeatedly told me that I was the reason she didn’t leave my dad when I was growing up. She told me that she would leave ‘for good’ once I was out of school. (She would leave for two weeks every couple of years, come back, rinse repeat.) After a certain point, I started praying that they would get a divorce so I wouldn’t have to keep comforting her while she cried about how miserable SHE was. If parents are really invested in the “sake of the children,” be HAPPY yourself. There is nothing worse than bearing witness to fights, poisonous silences, and seeing a terrible, false example/precedent of what marriage entails.
I always found him creepy.
I think sometimes it takes people a minute to process what has actually happened before they can react. So the behavior in the immediate aftermath of discovering something like this or it going public is not necessarily indicative of her true reaction. Plus, as you said, she’s rich. She may need to get legal ducks in a row, figure out if she wants to stay in France at all, if not, what does that mean about custody, etc., etc.
Money makes a lot of things easier, but it has its own complications that need to be addressed before any major moves can be made.
Well said.
I think that when kids are in the mix, there is a lot of societal pressure for the parents to stay together.
But the kids are older now and Ben and Natalie could completely come to the table and construct a workable co-parenting arrangement.
Hopefully, money will be a help and not a hindrance in this situation.
I hope that’s what she’s doing. Preparing the terrain so to speak. She don’t need him and this could be her career renaissance like post divorce Giselle.
My propensity to forgive and forget being extremely limited, if not non-existent, I would never ever go back to a man who has betrayed the sanctity of our love.
I am not taking back a bretzel that was dipped into another sauce. But that’s just me.
This only happened within the last couple of weeks. It’s way too soon for her to know what she’s going to do. Maybe she should leave, but she’s still processing. It’s a huge leap to divorce. But yea, with money and power, you have a lot more choices.
This is the American take on what American women WANT her to do, based on themselves and their own values. I’d divorce the rat, but remember she is very French-influenced too and may not take any affair too seriously. At least she should take a break, get away and figure out what she wants to do, even if a big portion of her public disagrees. It’s her life.
Well then why do we know about the affair at all and why is she commenting on it?
She’s a practicing Jew who takes her faith seriously. Divorce is considered a nuclear option. As J.Ferber mentioned immediate divorce is an American thing, Europeans don’t take these things the same way we do. I used to work for Alitalia, they sent someone from Italy to do our training. After class the instructor approached me for a date. I said “Aren’t you married?’ His reply “We don’t take these things as seriously as Americans do”. I wasn’t interested but that’s how they roll.
I agree. Divorce is a strong option and maybe she’s not ready to go that route, at least not yet anyway. There’s a lot to articulate in a situation like this specially if you were blind sided or anything like that.
Goodness, Mel, that’s the mother of all generalisations right there. I expect the instructor told you that because he wanted to pick you up.. not sure his wife would have taken it as lightly as he implied. If he had told you “my wife doesn’t understand me” would you have believed him? lol
I can see some people not getting divorced if they’re afraid of what happens with the inevitable child custody battle.
That said, this one’s up to Natalie to decide and not us.
As a child of divorced parents, you can tell when they are unhappy and it makes for a tense household. Never stay together for the children, it makes it worse.