The same year Cruel Intentions was released, he wed his co-star, Reese Witherspoon, his long-time girlfriend who was at the time six months pregnant with their daughter.
Contrary to popular belief, the former couple didn’t actually meet on the set of the film. They crossed paths for the first time in 1997, at Witherspoon’s 21st birthday party.
Witherspoon gave birth to their daughter Ava in 1999, and their son Deacon in 2003, before the couple filed for divorce in 2007 after seven years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences as the cause.
“I was so, so young, I was, like, ridiculously young,” Witherspoon said of her relationship with Phillippe in a 2011 interview with ELLE.
“I learnt a lot, though. It was an excellent opportunity for me to really find out what it means to be a partner and to be in a marriage and it’s not anything that I thought it was. You can’t say, ‘I don’t want to talk about that’. You just can’t. You’ve got to talk about it all.”
Phillippe was also forced to deny rumours their marriage breakdown was a result of an alleged affair with actress Abbie Cornish.
“I’m not a perfect person, but I’m not guilty of a lot of the things I have been accused of,” Phillippe announced in a statement in November 2006.
“My priority is and always has been the health and safety of my family.”
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