Gen Z has been taking it on the chin quite a bit in recent weeks for their illiteracy and coffee-drinking habits. But I’ll give Gen Z credit for something big: they cannot abide an age-gap relationship, and their disgust over extreme age-gaps has completely changed the way people talk about May-December romances. Before all of this conversation about age gaps, I think Millennials and Gen Xers mostly felt like “hey, it happens, it’s fine as long as everyone’s an adult.” Gen Z noped out of all of that. So I’m curious what they’ll say about this one: Will Arnett, 56, is dating a 28-year-old fashion heiress. He’s literally twice her age. His sons with Amy Poehler are closer to his girlfriend’s age.
Will Arnett is sharing details of his new relationship with a much younger designer and heiress. Arnett, 56, said he is “very happy” with his new girlfriend, 28-year-old fashion heiress Emma Marciano, during Monday’s episode of the Smartless podcast.
“It’s going really well,” Arnett said of his relationship. “I’m very happy, very, very happy. Things are going great.”
Co-host Jason Bateman asked Arnett, “In a perfect world, in five years, what does this relationship look like?”
“Can I be honest with you?” Arnett replied. “If I f—ing knew what five years….now, at 56, I have learned a little bit—in the last two years especially—to let go of whatever ideas of whatever I think [is] gonna happen. As you know, you get dealt so many f—ing curveballs. I’m in a place now where I’m really trying my best to just deal with what’s in front of me,” the actor said.
People first confirmed that Arnett is dating Emma Marciano, the co-founder of Los Angeles womenswear brand Mimchik, whose father is Guess founder Maurice Marciano.
Maurice and his co-founder brothers—Georges, Armand, and Paul—are worth an estimated $1.2 billion. (Georges and Armand are no longer involved with Guess, but the Marciano family still owns 51 percent of the brand’s intellectual property.)
Arnett has been married twice. In late 1994, the actor wed Awakenings actress Penelope Ann Miller for just 23 days. He later married Parks & Recreation star Amy Poehler in 2003. Arnett and Poehler—who were together for 13 years prior to their separation in 2012 and divorce in 2013—share two teenage sons: Archie, 17, and Abel, 16.
The Arrested Development star also shares a 6-year-old son, Alexander “Denny,” with businesswoman Alessandra Brown. The couple dated for five years and quietly split in 2024.
I completely forgot about his 6-year-old son. I thought he only had the two boys with Amy. I would LOVE to know Amy’s thoughts about this, btw. Even though I think Amy and Will get along well and coparent amicably, I’m sure she has some opinions. It sounds like Arnett’s Smartless cohosts have some thoughts too, and I applaud Jason Bateman for asking that question directly: what does this look like in five years? As in, do you really have a future with this young woman or are you wasting her time?
Photos courtesy of Getty Images, Cover Images.
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- Red carpet arrivals to the 98th Academy Awards at Dolby Thetre in Los Angeles Featuring: Will Arnett Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 15 Mar 2026 Credit: Valerie GoodloeMediaPunch/INSTARimages
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- Celebrities attend the UK gala screening of ‘Is This Thing On?’ at the Odeon Luxe, central London Featuring: Will Arnett Where: London, United Kingdom When: 19 Jan 2026 Credit: Ian West/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
I thought he was with age appropriate Carolyn Murphy. Oh well, Will is living that cliche I guess.
While I think this is weird, I have an interesting perspective. My Gen Z daughter is 26. Her last two and current boyfriends have all been in their late 30s. When she first started dating the first one and we raised concerns—she was 22 at the time—she said, “Mom, have you met men my age? They don’t have furniture.” And I thought that was a fair point. She’s always been mature for her age. That said, I hope she’s simply biding her time with men who can afford to take her out to dinner until the men her age catch up.
That’s a gap sure but it’s not twice her age.
Yes, thank god.
They may not have furniture, but a man that age interested in a 22 year old has plenty of other, even worse issues.
Yep. I was that early twenties woman dating older men. And married a guy who was 36 to my 23 when we got together. I thought I was so smart marrying a “mature” man and it turned out he just never wanted to grow up. And liked dating someone so much younger because it made it easier for him to feel in charge.
My daughter is in her late 20s and her BF is just shy of 40. Having spent time with him, the age gap doesn’t seem the least bit problematic to me. Granted, he’s not old enough to be her father or anything. But it’s the same thing. Guys her age are still living like college kids, sometimes out of necessity but often by choice. Even her current BF is kind of a big kid. He’s a hard worker and is a true prince to her, but she has to remind him that he can’t wear shorts to dinner.
This young lady comes from money and has her own thing going on. What could she want with a B-list actor pushing 60 and so much baggage? Girl have some standards.
Will comes from serious money himself. He is a heir as well.
Will Arnett does much work fundraising for medical equipment for a local hospital in East Toronto. He’s funny. His family is wealthy enough to send him to private schools and encourage philanthropy endeavors. He is not a heir/billionaire wealthy.
Amy Poehler has done comedy sketches where she offers Will Arnett’s new girlfriends a juice box. I was surprised when they announced their divorce so suddenly. They seem to have parted on decent terms. I appreciate that Will Arnett addresses his sobriety on his podcast.
MTE! What’s does she get out if this? He looks like he smells bad. But yeah I guess I can see that maybe she can’t trust the motives of a lot of dudes.
For Amy Poehler’s take on this, I suggest looking for the SNL sketch “Meet Your Second Wife”, a gameshow where she and Tina Fey introduced three middle-aged married men to meet their future wife, who get progressively younger and younger. It’s one of my favourites, and uh… I think she probably drew some inspiration from her life. 👀
I’ll check it out. She & Tina can be savage.
Holy crap. Savage does not do this justice. 😳 I think my neighbors heard me cackling. https://youtu.be/MJEAGd1bQuc?is=K0grQKlJAE7fKFLu
Hahaha @jay this is one of my favourites. I love Leslie as one of the first wives: “you a dead man Tobie”.
I think a lot of your kids are going to feel differently about those relationships when they hit their boyfriends’ ages.
I think it is a tried and true excuse to say “have you met young men my age?!?! They are the wooooorst.” That predates Gen Z I’m a college instructor and i teach mainly young men and they are overall lovely sweet kids. They are just young. Young men and young women both have huge blindspots because they are young, and those blindspots are what make them so easy to manipulate by older people.
He’s wasting her time, hence the non-answer answer.
He’s such a cliche. Too tan, pushing 60, looking to feel younger.
I am precisely zero percent surprised that Arnett continues his lengthy post divorce trend of only dating women in their twenties – Bo Jack Horseman wasn’t written for him, but he wrote for it, and the character was hugely shaped by him in a way that ultimately feels like art imitating life – I would give 1,000 to hear Amy P’s unfiltered take on him in general. Her very few comments on the subject seemed pretty aligned with how I’d expect someone like that to be. And I can even understand why it works, women in their twenties are more likely to find being sardonic, hard done by, and seemingly self-effacing to be attractive and less likely to question the relative lack of depth in someone with twice their lived experience. That being said, the really troubling thing about most age gap relationships is the relative power/agency imbalance, and an established business woman and heiress isn’t going to need a parachute because she has her own bag, her own life, her own ticket out. So they ARE probably both exactly where they want to be and he’s right, the next five years aren’t a concern or thought for him and they’re probably not for her either.
I just wanna understand why all these women in their 20s look so old. Is it the makeup? The surgery? They all seem to look like Real Housewives cast members.
I thought the same thing and not from an ageism perspective. more from a ifyou told me she was a Hollywood 44 I would believe you.
to be fair I have looked 36 since I was 16. so maybe she has “mature face.” but really I think it’s all the procedures these girls do at such a young age that they all end up looking identical and identically in their early 40s
I wonder if that phrase “are you wasting her time?” isn’t from a generation bygone.
We don’t know this young woman or what she wants. Maybe she is focused on building her business and wants someone that has entertainment connections, which Arnett certainly has, has his own money and children, and is not looking for anything more. Someone who won’t embarrass her at a gala.
I say this because it’s something I heard a lot in my own twenties, that any relationship that didn’t work out was “wasting my time” because we didn’t get married. It was just assumed that I should always be scheming or angling for a man who would propose to me before the clock struck thirty. That was simply the social and economic reality of a different era. Emma Marciano seems to have generational wealth and beauty, she could undoubtedly date a thirty-something if she wanted to. Maybe she doesn’t want to? Let’s assume, just for simplicity’s sake, that she knows just what she wants at this moment.
Arnett’s never really been my cup of tea, but I could see how he might be easy to hang out with for someone in their late twenties. And maybe she will hit 32 and think “My god, this guy is annoyingly immature, I should set him up with someone younger”.
Scream it from the rooftops! Where are all these young women hanging onto a man, hoping for that ring and getting their time wasted? That’s not who young women are any more (if they ever were). The biological clock has been extended quite a bit thanks to science. Alternative family structures are widely accepted now. And not everyone is pursuing biological motherhood.
What’s wasting everyone’s time is a political climate that thinks women can be sent backwards in time. Oops. Didn’t research that one did they?
“Wasting her time” can also mean, is she looking for a life partner – the one (with or without kids) – whereas the man is just looking for a young woman to spend his time with for a few years, and then move on to a different one.
@Hillary – But someone significantly older than you with tons more life experience by definition won’t be a “life partner.” Not only aren’t you experiencing the stages of life together, but the older partner will someday be elderly (or gone) while you’re still youthful. I don’t believe the younger woman is that foolish to believe this could be “the one.” Maybe some of Leo’s beards have been hopeful to achieve Hollywood wife status but even then I doubt they were seeking true partnership.
Gotta give Leo credit here. Making 25 years his maximum upper limit means he never dates anyone actually looking for a husband or expecting a long term commitment.
Just makes me think of Amy’s “meet your second wife” SNL sketch. Honestly you would think comedians of all people would see the ridiculousness of what they’re doing, but oh well.
“….and I’m Tina Fey”.
Sorry it’s weird to me. What do you even have in common. And he’s going to be 61 in 5 years which is why Bateman asked that question LOL
I love the work of both of these actors. The podcast is pathetic, and starting to think they are too. I wish I never saw the podcast, so I could have kept my illusions.
I used to love love love Jason Bateman, now not so much
I’ve been a fan of the three Smartless guys as performers so I listened to it a bit but I got bored pretty fast. Listening to a couple of rich guys talk about golf and other rich guy activities got boring pretty fast so I stopped listening. Now I listen to Handsome and Good Hang ti scratch my Hollywood chat itch. Way-richer-than-me-but-still-having-to-hustle lesbians and menopausal single mom are much more enjoyable for me.
Eff him.
Don’t start glazing GenZ just yet. When they hit their thirties and forties, you’re going to see them suddenly change their minds about intergenerational relationships. Funny how that happens.
At 35 I married a 50 yo man and there wasn’t really any difficulty with the age gap, fast forward 27 years, he’s almost 77 to my 62 and the differences are getting bigger, especially with energy levels and health issues.