Julia Roberts had a difficult childhood with an abusive stepdad and a major heartbreak after divorcing her first husband before she found her forever love.
Julia Roberts has an unforgettable smile that is loved by everyone. She is one of the iconic actresses in Hollywood and the usually private star doesn't talk about her difficult childhood much. She grew up in a difficult household with an abusive stepfather, not knowing how it felt to be appreciated by a father figure. Perhaps, that has made her into a protective mother and wife.
Her brother Eric, who is also an actor and the father of actress Emma Roberts, has talked about what a "freak" their stepfather, Michael Motes, was. The actress "feared and despised" Michael, according to Mirror UK. For 11 years, between the age of 5 and about 16, she had to live with him as her mother, Betty, was married to Michael. She spent more than a decade in fear and anxiety. But, that didn't do anything to clamp down her beautiful spirit and talent.
In 1987, she got her first role in a film called Firehouse. By 1989, she got her starring role in Steel Magnolias. However, working on that movie was a living hell for her. Director Herbert Ross had been very harsh with her during the filming of the movie. "He went after Julia with a vengeance,” Sally Field told Us Weekly. "This was pretty much her first big film." Co-star Shirley MacLaine added that Roberts "would come to my house every night and say, 'I think I'm terrible. What am I doing?’ and she really was in tears." This shows that her acting prowess was forged with sweat and tears. Hollywood can be a difficult place for newbies but soon she found her footing and belted out many superhits.
By the time she met cinematographer Danny Moder while shooting The Mexican in 2000, she was a seasoned actress and had made her place in the industry. However, she had one failed marriage to singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett behind her and a broken heart.
"I think that first kind of real… 'seismic shift' was meeting Danny," Julia told Gwyneth Paltrow in an episode of the Goop podcast, according to Entertainment Tonight. The couple married in 2002. "Getting married to Danny. That was the first, like, my life will never be the same in the most incredible, indescribable way… He truly, to this day, to this minute, is just my favorite human. I'm more interested in what he has to say or his point of view just more than anybody. Really, we're so lucky in that way. We just really, really like each other and we just enjoy each other’s company.”
Danny showered her with love as she had never known before. "I'm so lucky to be crazy happy in my life. And I think it's not so much that I'm happier now than ever; it's that I'm more content. I'm in the harbor of my life. A huge part of it is my marriage. My husband, Danny, has really shined the light for me. Because of being married, I've met people and experienced all these little things that have nurtured my life—not so much changed it, just nurtured it in a way that's astounding," she told Oprah a year after she got married.
Even though he's not as famous as she, she believes that their relationship and work have got nothing to do with each other. "The jobs don't get married. The people get married. It sounds clichéd and I've said it a thousand times, but I do think that I am fundamentally the same relatively simple person I've always been," she said.
It's been almost 18 years since they got married and became parents to three kids, but they're still going strong. "We've been married for 16 years, we've been together for 18," the actress told Goop in 2018. "It just gets deeper, it just gets more complex...you're young and you fall in love and go, 'Yeah, we're going to get married and we're going to build a house and will have kids,' and all these things that we all kind of dream of, but you don't know if you're going to like the same couch and you don't know if he is going to want to get patterned towels," she said.
References:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/julia-roberts-pictured-michael-motes-2800516
http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/oprah-interviews-julia-roberts/4
