Kate Beckinsale has had a quiet but solid run in Hollywood the past few decades,
though her career has largely been overshadowed by her love life.
With that in mind, let's take a deep dive into this actress' unconventional dating history.
Beckinsale is especially snuggly with one of her exes, fellow British actor Michael Sheen.
The two of them initially started dating back in 1995 after appearing together in
a touring production of The Seagull. They were together for eight years,
and they even welcomed a daughter named Lily Mo into the world in 1999. But they split in 2003
soon after they both appeared in the first Underworld movie.
And yet somehow, despite all the odds, Beckinsale and Sheen might just be each other's
favorite person. In 2018, Beckinsale spent her birthday and the Christmas holidays with Sheen,
and it's not unusual to see them getting affectionate with each other on Instagram.
In 2016, she posted a photo of them in a warm embrace after their daughter got into college.
Two years later, they were snuggling in a holiday photo. Beckinsale even once praised Sheen's
then-girlfriend Sarah Silverman for setting a positive example in her daughter's life.
"I'll tell you this about Kate:
there's not an annoying thing. The annoying thing is that there isn't an annoying thing."
In a 2016 interview with Evening Standard,
Beckinsale opened up about her affectionate relationship with Sheen.
It turns out their type of love is simple as long as there's laughter involved. As she put it,
"It's so normal for us. We split up ages ago. We have been not together far longer than we were
ever together. But I really love him and like him and we make each other roar with laughter."
"I think the thing is, if you both really
put your kids' well-being first and share a sense of humor, you're sort of halfway there."
For two people who adore each other so much, it's a little surprising that Kate
Beckinsale and Michael Sheen never tied the knot. With eight years of dating and
a daughter, what was the hold-up? It may have just been the whims of fate,
or maybe it had something to do with Beckinsale's annoying habits.
In a 2020 interview with Vulture, she admitted that she thought nobody would ever propose to her,
but in fact she has been asked to tie the knot several times. She didn't specify who
those proposals came from, but we do know that Sheen wasn't one of them.
As Beckinsale told the Scottish tabloid Daily Record back in 2001,
"I actually asked Michael outright, 'Why aren't we married yet?' I couldn't believe it when he said,
'Because every time I was going to ask you, you did something annoying.'
So maybe if I can hold off being annoying for a while, then he'll finally ask me."
Considering that they never did get married, we have to assume she wasn't able to reign it in.
"I won't marry anyone, but I would give you the time of day if you drew a penis stamp."
Beckinsale and Sheen's relationship ended rather scandalously, even though it didn't
get a ton of bad press at the time. The actress met her husband-to-be Len
Wiseman while he was directing her in 2003's Underworld, and they quickly fell in love.
The only problem was that Wiseman was married to someone else at the time,
and Beckinsale was still with Sheen. There were rumors of an affair, but Beckinsale and Wiseman
were adamant that no cheating ever occurred. Nevertheless, soon after they both split from
their respective partners and got hitched in a May 2004 ceremony in Bel-Air, California.
Weirdly enough, that minor scandal didn't seem to affect Beckinsale's relationship with Sheen very
much at all. The two of them remained tight, if only because they had to co-parent their
daughter. As Beckinsale explained to Entertainment Tonight in 2016, regardless of their history,
"He's family. I've known him since I was 21, so he's proper family."
Kate Beckinsale doesn't need a man's money, especially if that man is her ex-husband.
She was married to Len Wiseman for 11 years before they announced that they were separating in 2015.
He filed for divorce in October the following year, and both parties waived their right to
spousal support. Though it took four years to actually finalize the divorce, it was a
notably low-key split. An anonymous source who was reportedly close to Wiseman and Beckinsale told
People Magazine that the pair still hung out after their separation. As the source put it,
"They are still friendly and spend time together in L.A. when Kate is there.
There has been no drama. It's just not Kate's style."
According to the source, there genuinely wasn't any bad blood. The split was as simple
as "complicated schedules" forcing the couple apart. Although it's perhaps worth noting that
Wiseman was spotted hanging out with a model half his age in the midst of the separation.
In 2017, Beckinsale cozied up with a much younger man outside of a West
Hollywood restaurant when she shared some very public kisses with then-21-year-old
comedian Matt Rife. The fact that he was a couple of decades younger than her didn't seem
to make much of a difference to the Underworld actress. As a source told People Magazine,
"Kate is enjoying her life. She is dating and having fun."
However, Rife had a different story to tell. In 2019, he doled out some advice
to Beckinsale's new flame Pete Davidson, and he couldn't help but sound a little bit bitter. He
told TMZ that their relationship was, quote, "complicated" with "a lot of ups and downs"
and that the best advice he had for the SNL comedian was to "run." As he put it,
"Enjoy it while you can. I hope they're both happy.
I hope it can build to where it's an established, good relationship. I don't know."
It seems like Beckinsale has a bit of a thing for comedians.
After she split with Matt Rife, she reportedly hooked up with British comic Jack Whitehall.
According to People Magazine, in November 2018 she was caught kissing Whitehall at a
karaoke bar less than a year after he ended his six-year relationship with Gemma Chan.
According to The Sun, Beckinsale and Whitehall hung out at Hollywood hot spot Craig's, but they
left separately to avoid detection. Whitehall then walked two blocks down the road where Beckinsale
picked him up in an SUV. She's 15 years older than him, so clearly age differences are no
big deal for her. Ultimately, it doesn't look like anything serious ever developed between these two.
Beckinsale's relationship with Pete Davidson probably didn't make that
much sense to anyone who was following it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't serendipity.
The two of them were first linked by Page Six in January 2019 when they were caught
flirting at a Golden Globes party. Soon after, they were reportedly planning a
holiday together and kissing rinkside at a New York Rangers hockey game. Alas,
the relationship lasted less than four months, as they reportedly split at the end of April.
The downfall seemed to be the fact that Beckinsale and Davidson were clearly in
two different phases of life, and not just because of their 20-year age gap. That year,
Davidson moved back in with his mom and was just starting a movie career, while Beckinsale is a
mother to a daughter nearly as old as Davidson, and she's an established actress who's been
in the industry for nearly 30 years. As Davidson admitted in an interview with Charlamagne Tha God,
"It wasn't just the right time. I think I was going into another rehab […] I must have,
like, a pattern. I wasn't, like, right yet, and she had a lot of acting and work to do.
She's like a superstar, so, you know, it just didn't work."
"I feel like you need an older woman, though."
"I liked it. I had fun."
Although Davidson claimed the timing was off, it may have actually been his level of fame
that turned Beckinsale off. According to an insider who spoke to Page Six,
"She struggled with the attention on her relationship with Pete.
He lives his life with his heart on his sleeve."
While Davidson regularly jokes about his relationships on SNL and pretty
much lives like an open book, Beckinsale is a bit more private. Of course, though,
there are conflicting reports. An anonymous Hollywood executive told
Page Six that the press was actually one of Davidson's main draws. As the exec put it,
"Kate loves the attention — both from a younger guy
and the media. She hasn't been in the press this much in years."
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. As Beckinsale herself told the Los Angeles Times,
"I'm surprised by the interest. I've never been in
this position before — never dated anybody who comes with their own bag of mischief."
In 2020, Beckinsale dated her youngest catch yet, as she was linked to 22-year-old Canadian
rocker Goody Grace in January when they were caught leaving a pre-Grammys party together.
Grace is just one year older than Beckinsale's daughter,
so Beckinsale's dating history can be considered a bit of a power move in an industry where older
men notoriously date younger women. That's especially true when she was taking none of
the criticism that came with her and Grace's age gap. In May 2020, she told Women's Health,
"It can feel like a little bit of a political act to be a woman over 32
who's having any fun at all [...] I witness men constantly doing whatever they like,
whether that's in relationships, or deciding to buy a motorbike, or getting a tattoo."
Simply put, there's no holding Kate Beckinsale back! She's going to have fun however she pleases,
which may very well include dating a 22-year-old boyfriend while she's in her forties.
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a lot of people to reevaluate or suddenly
upgrade their relationships, including Kate Beckinsale and Goody Grace. Though
they'd only been dating each other for a few months, in May 2020 he moved into
her home to quarantine together during the pandemic. As a source told People Magazine,
"Kate enjoys his company. She finds him very mature, smart and creative. He entertains
her with music, they cook and watch movies. She thinks he is the perfect quarantine boyfriend."
It's unclear if Beckinsale's daughter also quarantined with the new couple or if she hung
out with her dad instead, but we're willing to bet that Beckinsale could school the two
college-aged kids at beer pong. Either way, this live-in romance was short-lived. According to E!,
the couple split after just nine months of dating. Beckinsale reportedly deleted a comment she wrote
on his Instagram, which signaled trouble. It was then reported that she unfollowed him,
only to possibly follow him again. As a source told Us Weekly in October,
"Most of Kate’s friends don’t think this is a long-lasting/forever type of relationship."
In other words: it was fun while it lasted, but it wasn't meant to be forever,
and Beckinsale moved on to thrive all on her own.
With one divorce and a string of relationships under her belt, Kate Beckinsale is the first
person to admit that she's not the best wife, at least when it comes to the kitchen. Instead,
she's focused her efforts on the bedroom. Apparently, you can't be skilled at both,
at least if Beckinsale's example is anything to go by. If you try to be a jack-of-all-trades,
you just might end up a jack-of-no-trades instead. The actress owned up to her
shortcomings in a 2008 interview with the British edition of Glamour, as she admitted,
"I'm the worst wife in the cooking department. I always thought you can't be good at food and sex,
but you can always order the food in. I would rather he didn't order in the sex!"
At the time of that interview, Beckinsale was still married to Len Wiseman, so perhaps she's
picked up some kitchen skills since then. One of her other former flings, Jack Whitehall,
has admitted to being awful in the bedroom, though he's reportedly a great cook. He even took part
in a Father's Day edition of MasterChef. With their combined skills, we can only assume they'd
be the ultimate power couple if they were still together. Clearly, Beckinsale has struggled to
find a forever beau, but at least she's always managed to maintain an entertaining perspective.
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