They wanted wedding bells and children,
so why did Robert Downey Jr. and Sarah Jessica Parker's romantic spark go up in smoke??
Robert Downey Jr. and Sarah Jessica Parker were just 18 years old when they
first locked eyes. They met while acting alongside each other in the 1984 drama
"First Born," a film which had the two playing classmates. Behind the scenes,
they became more than co-stars; it didn't take long for the actors to realize
their feelings for one another. And instead of playing hard to get, Downey and Parker
took the leap and started dating immediately. Downey joked in a 1985 interview with People,
"I guess Sarah thought I looked scary enough to be interesting."
Parker had zero dating experience before meeting Downey, but the future Marvel star had multiple
girlfriends in the past. Yet, according to Downey, those relationships never really felt authentic,
as he believed those relationships were more about his status as an
actor than who he was as a person. And then Parker came along and changed that.
Parker and Downey became one of the "it couples" of the decade, and their romance didn't burn out
until the early '90s. When asked about that period on "CenterStage" in 2018, Parker said,
"It was a really adventurous, important eight years of my life."
After only two months of dating, Robert Downey Jr. and Sarah Jessica Parker
moved in together. Although they were only 18 years old when they began sharing a home,
both actors were eager to pursue a serious relationship with one another. Despite many
people questioning their romance, implying that they were too young to be moving so quickly,
Parker shrugged off the doubters. She told People two years into their courtship,
"Are you not supposed to be serious about anything when you're 20 years old?"
It turns out Parker wasn't the only one who was fully committed. According to Downey,
he was fully prepared to start a family with his then-girlfriend. He told the Los Angeles Times,
"It's inevitable that we'll have children, raise a family — do all the traditional stuff."
Despite how committed they were, it took some time for Downey and Parker to feel comfortable
publicizing their romance. As Parker said in People, they wanted to keep their relationship
under wraps at first, out of fear that they'd be judged for moving so quickly.
But clearly, the couple didn't feel the need to keep their relationship a secret for too long.
Two years down the road, Parker and Downey invited
People into their abode so they could let the world in on their love story.
Robert Downey Jr.'s father was a huge fan of Sarah Jessica Parker,
and not just because of her acting work. Robert Downey Sr. believed Parker to be
a positive influence on his son. Downey Sr. told People in 1985,
"I thank God for Sarah Jessica Parker. Without her, Robert would go at 100 miles an hour into
a brick wall. They're very sweet together. He might become a gentleman as a result of this."
Furthermore, the "Weird Science" actor admitted that Parker helped keep him out of trouble,
adding that the "Sex and the City" star helped him learn
how to be more of a grownup. Downey Jr. said in People,
"She got me an accountant and made me open a bank account."
All and all, it sounds like Parker had a great impact on Downey Jr.'s life,
although he was struggling with addiction. As he said on "The Howard Stern Show" in 2016,
"[Sarah and I] actually had a very conservative relationship
considering the fact that she was normal, and I was out of my mind."
Instead of dinner and a movie, Sarah Jessica Parker and Robert Downey Jr. had a much more
exciting idea of how to bond as a couple. One of their favorite forms of date night
included having highly competitive water balloon fights. According to People,
when Downey and Parker were feeling especially mischievous, they'd throw the water balloons
at their unsuspecting neighbors from the second floor of their home. Parker told the magazine,
"It's very immature, I know. But fun."
When they got bored with that, they'd spend their time speeding down slides at the nearby waterpark.
Sounds kind of like a blast, right? Well, it was, until it wasn't. Because of Downey's addiction to
drugs and alcohol, their relationship took a sharp turn once Parker realized what was
going on. According to Parker, there was a significant period of time within
their relationship when she had no idea that Downey was using. As she told People in 2018,
"I was like, 'Why is his heart beating so fast? Don't do so many pushups before bed!'"
In their 1985 People interview, Robert Downey Jr. and Sarah Jessica Parker revealed that
they wanted to have a big Jewish wedding at a luxurious hotel in West Hollywood. Downey
even gave Parker a diamond ring, yet she insisted it was just a sweet gift
instead of a symbol signifying an engagement. She told the magazine,
"It's kind of a hanging-out-together ring."
While many aspects of their relationship were arguably rushed, they never dove head first
into a marriage with one another. In fact, as far as we know, they were never technically engaged.
But as Downey said in a 2015 "The Howard Stern Show" interview, despite not getting
down on one knee for Parker, he had planned on spending the rest of his life with her.
"Any time I was in a relationship, I thought, 'You're going to bury me next to this woman.
And it's not that simple, and God has other plans."
Due to Robert Downey Jr.'s struggles with addiction,
Sarah Jessica Parker has said there were times she had to look out for her then-boyfriend
as though he were a child. Eventually, she mustered up the courage to leave the relationship.
Although she still cared for Downey, she wanted to find a partner who could
treat her like a lover as opposed to a caretaker. But dating RDJ came with some
unexpected benefits. She revealed to Jess Cagle in a 2016 People interview,
"It taught me how I love. And what's the difference between loving and taking care
of people and what's necessary, and what grown-ups should and shouldn't
do for one another... Maybe it taught me a little bit about being a parent too,
because the things that I ended up caring about, and the way I cared for Downey,
were things that might be more suitable for a parent at a certain point."
Some time after her relationship with Downey,
Parker became a parent. As of 2022, she shares three kids with her husband,
Matthew Broderick — all of whom are her top priority. As she said in Glamour in 2009,
"Most important to me is my home life and the well-being of my children."
At a certain point, Robert Downey Jr.'s drug and alcohol use led Sarah Jessica Parker to
believe he wouldn't survive the disease. Being his significant other, she felt a
sense of responsibility toward him, and she took the initiative to be there for Downey at every
waking moment. However, she began to realize how much she was neglecting her own needs,
and she found it necessary to leave him. She said on the "WTF with Marc Maron" podcast,
"Eventually, I guess I just summoned the courage to leave him. The biggest,
hardest choices about those kinds of relationships are feeling brave enough to leave,
even if you think they're going to die."
She added that although she never stopped loving Downey, she had to end things for the sake of her
own mental health. Ultimately, taking care of the actor became too draining. She told Maron,
"You love this person, and you're afraid they're gonna die if you aren't there to
shore up their base every single solitary day. I just didn't want him to die."
Downey has overcome his struggles with addiction, and has reportedly been sober since the early
2000s. According to a 1996 issue of People, Downey had been using drugs since childhood. He said,
"When my dad and I would do drugs together,
it was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how."
Over two decades after they broke up,
Sarah Jessica Parker and Robert Downey Jr. decided to meet up,
catch up, and tie up any loose ends. When Downey was a guest on "The Howard Stern Show" in 2015,
he spilled the details about how he reached out to Parker and asked her out to lunch. The old flames
reconnected at a tapas restaurant, and both were thrilled to see how much the other was thriving.
"Seeing her, I was like, 'She is so great, and so cool, and so funny, and so in command.'"
RDJ also told Howard Stern that he got to meet Parker's kids and see the way she and
Matthew Broderick lived. It made him realize how much he respected them both. Furthermore,
Parker is proud to say that the two are on good terms. She said on "CenterStage,"
"It was really nice to see him. ... I was fortunate in that I never felt that
there were hard feelings. You know, we weren't estranged, we had simply gone on with our lives."
Though both have long moved on from their relationship, RDJ and SJP
clearly hold nothing but respect for one another all these years later.