Julia Roberts was married to country singer Lyle Lovett from 1993 to 1995 before calling it quits. They barely spent any time together but ended things amicably.
Not every person we date can become our partner for life. Some people make great partners but aren't willing to do the long haul. Some teach us important lessons in a short time but it still doesn't work in the long term. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that the former partners aren't amicable while splitting up. The trick to finding the perfect partner lies in timing, most people say. If we are not ready for our partner and they are not ready for us, at the same time, things can go awry easily.
Julia Roberts, who turned 53 on October 28th, has been married to husband Danny Moder for 18 years now, but it's not her first marriage. When she was young and busy, she fell in love with country singer Lyle Lovett, 62. She was 25 and single and he was 35 and single too. While some say they met on set of Robert Altman’s 1992 film The Player, Roberts once explained that she met him through mutual friends, according to Instyle. She was already a fan of his music and kept Lovett's tapes in her car.
The former couple began dating in early June 1993 and surprised the world by marrying in a small Indiana town in July 1993, according to People. They had been together for only a few weeks or 21 days before tying the knot. Their whirlwind romance caught many people unawares as the Pretty Woman actress had recently broken off her engagement with Keith Sutherland. Furthermore, Lovett and the Eat Pray Love actress reportedly planned their wedding only 72 hours before they tied the knot.
They had squeezed in their wedding between their busy work schedules, and it was only a preview of what their life was going to be like. The Erin Brockovinch star wore a white Commes des Garçons gown with a tulle scarf as a veil and was barefoot as she walked down the aisle.
After the small wedding, Lovett and Roberts returned to their work. Lovett went back to performing the same night as his wedding to her. That night, Lovett brought Roberts out on stage during his performance and told his audience, "Welcome to the happiest day of my life." She returned to filming for The Pelican Brief a few days later. The cast and crew, including co-star Denzel Washington, reportedly threw her a party. They wrote shirts that read "He’s A Lovely Boy…But You Really Must Do Something About His Hair" on the back.
Their busy schedules kept them apart most of the time, and their relationship buckled under the pressure. "We’ve never gone more than a week without seeing each other since we got married but before that we’d never spent more than seven days together," Lovett told People around the end of 1993. There were other signs that they were living separate lives. They had a rented home in L.A., but they kept their separate homes. Lovett's was in Texas and hers in N.Y.C.
In 1995, they announced that they were getting separated but said that they "remain close and in great support of one another." Many years later, the private actress opened up to the New York Daily News, as per People, about her marriage to Lovett. She said that it was a "miscalculation." When she was asked if she thought of it as a mistake, she said, "Never a mistake. Too many great things came out of it. We have this great shared experience that never had any nasty moments. What we had doesn’t come close to the mistake category."
Lovett remained close to Roberts' mother at least until 1997 and the Steel Magnolias actress said that her separation was a calm one. Both of them knew that they were not right for each other.
"It’s actually ridiculously amicable," Roberts told the L.A. Times about her divorce. "You’d think people who could be that nice to each other would probably be a couple, but it just sort of wasn’t the way it was intended to be. We found our little niche and then overstepped it a little bit. In fact, I think it can just as often be the weaker choice to stay," she added.
References:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/lyle-lovett-said-julia-roberts-190000748.html?
https://people.com/archive/cover-story-lovett-first-sight-vol-40-no-2/
https://people.com/archive/lyle-lovett/
https://people.com/celebrity/julia-on-marriage-i-lovett/
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-08-06-ca-31878-story.html
