"Divorce is hard. Love is hard. All those things were so personal.
They weren't for mass consumption."
Imagine getting caught cheating and having the whole world know about it. Sounds like
something completely unimaginable, right? Well, not completely unimaginable for Meg Ryan.
While she was married to Dennis Quaid, her affair with Russell Crowe was published all
over the Hollywood tabloids. What followed was a messy divorce and Meg's ruined reputation.
While Dennis seemed to have moved on from the wreckage of his first marriage,
is it true that Meg was never able to recover the pieces of her career or her broken heart?
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Meg and Dennis met on the set of Innerspace and they quickly sparked a romance.
But it wasn't smooth-sailing from the get-go of their relationship because Dennis was facing a
demon he wasn’t ready to tackle yet … While the actor was having a successful career,
the same couldn't be said about his personal life. Dennis has been open
about his battle with substance abuse which already started back in the '70s.
"It starts out fun and then there's fun with problems, and then there's just problems,"
It was during the height of his deadly addiction that the couple started dating.
Quaid described it as having an epiphany, and said he knew he would either end up losing everything
he loved or dying if he didn't get control of the substances that were crippling his life.
So after the two got engaged, Dennis made a tough decision of going to rehab
to recover from his addiction. And Meg was there, by his side, every step of the way.
There is no denying though, that having to support a partner through rehab so early
on in the relationship can add stress that many other couples don't have to deal with.
Instead of spending their engagement planning weddings and swooning over one another,
Quaid was in rehab going through withdrawals. And Ryan was doing her best
to keep a brave face through it all. After they wed and her husband was trying to get sober,
the actress was filming the movie 'When A Man Loves A Woman' where she played the role of an
alcoholic woman. She admitted that the part gave her a perspective on what Dennis was going through
during the peak of his addiction and it helped her empathize with his daily struggle.
For the next few years of their marriage, the couple took over Hollywood as one of the hottest
pairs to walk the red carpet. He was one of the most handsome men in Hollywood and she was the
charming, funny, blond bombshell. They appeared to be inseparable, and with the birth of their son,
Jack, it seemed like nothing could ever go wrong …
Their careers were also on the rise. You remember Meg Ryan, don't you? Of course you do! She was
the rom-com queen of the '90s, bringing us classics like 'When Harry Met Sally' and
'Sleepless In Seattle'. You might be even a little more familiar with Dennis Quaid.
He was the heartthrob of the same period, with a smile that drove us all crazy.
He won fans' hearts with his roles in 'The Parent Trap', starring alongside the young
Lindsay Lohan and 'Something To Talk About' with the stunning Julia Roberts.
Meg and Dennis were seemingly riding the high on their romance and their careers
until it all quickly came crashing down.The couple divorced over twenty years ago, but it's only now
that Meg has decided to set the record straight on their split and make sure that everyone knows
the REAL story. Ryan used to be everyone's favourite movie sweetheart for many years,
but nowadays we don't really hear - or see - that much of her. The divorce from her first husband,
Dennis Quaid, seemed to have painted Meg as a Scarlet Woman and moved her into the shadows.
"I'd never felt like I was all that concerned with what people thought of me,
but then that story never got told right,"
In early 2000, rumors that the couple's marriage was on the rocks were starting
to spread. At the time, the press knew almost nothing of what was really going on behind Meg
and Dennis's closed doors. It wasn't until Ryan was spotted with her 'Proof Of Life' co-star,
Russell Crowe cozying up with one another off-set,
that the public put two and two together. If the married couple was going through a rough patch,
and Meg was seemingly canoodling with another man … then she must have been having an affair.
Soon, the news of the pair's divorce was announced which sent Hollywood into shambles.
How could one of the most beloved celebrity couples have called off their nine-year marriage?
It was almost too painful for the public to fathom. Dennis admitted that
the circumstances were so public that he even got a call from then-President Bill Clinton.
"He called me from Air Force One … I don't know how he found me,
but he did. He just wanted to let me know he was thinking of me."
Fans also had to find someone to blame, and because Meg had already
made her relationship public with Russell, they branded her a cheater.
It seemed that Meg and Russell weren't meant to last, since they called it quits just a few months
later. Friends close to the pair at the time said that Russell was very serious about Meg and wanted
to marry her, but she hadn't had enough time to heal the wounds her divorce had left behind.
"Russell didn't break up the marriage. He was definitely there at the end, but it wasn't
his fault. I was a mess. I hurt him, too, at the end. I couldn't be in another long relationship,
it wasn't the time for that. So I got out."
For years, the actress suffered under the Scarlet Woman label, and her career never seemed to
recover from the unforgiving tabloids. It wasn't until almost ten years later that the actress
confronted all the allegations of her divorce from Dennis and her relationship with Russell.
"My marriage was a ... very unhealthy marriage. I probably should have left
it much earlier. It was never about another man,"
The actress had also admitted that her former husband hadn't been faithful to her
during their marriage and that her fame also took a toll on their relationship.
The actor struggled to come to terms with the fact that his wife was more famous than he was.
"We'd go out on the streets of New York and it would be like,
'Meg! Meg!' And I have to admit it; I actually did feel like I disappeared.
I didn't think I was that small, but I was," Dennis said about Meg's rise to fame.
However, when Dennis was asked about having cheated on Meg during their marriage,
the actor was completely shocked and denied it all.
"I find it unbelievable that Meg continues publicly to rehash and rewrite the story of
our relationship." Quaid also said that he was disappointed by the fact that their son,
Jack, had to be reminded of his parents' messy spit all over again by the tabloids.
Despite everything that Meg has had to say about their marriage, the actor has kept all
his comments short and polite. He's said that his ex-wife is a beautiful and courageous woman,
and he's spent a lot of time grieving the loss of their companionship. The actor even confessed that
he still loves Meg, and that nothing could take away from him the 13 years they spent together.
In the meantime, Ryan battled to pick up the pieces of her shattered career.
Her role in the 2003 film ‘In the Cut’ was met with terrible reviews,
so she decided it was time to take a step back from the spotlight and focus on her personal life.
"I was burned out. I didn't feel like I knew enough anymore
about myself or the world to reflect it as an actor. I felt isolated,"
So what's come of the two actors after all these years?
Well, Dennis recently announced his marriage to third wife Laura Savoie,
who is 27 years his junior. The pair eloped in June after their initial plans to wed in Hawaii
had to be canceled due to the COVID 19 pandemic. He described his relationship with his new wife as
love at first sight and said he's never been able to connect with anyone like he has with Laura.
On the other hand, it seems like Meg hasn't been as lucky in love. She and musician John Mellencamp
have just recently called off their engagement after a rocky on-and-off-again rollercoaster
dating back to 2011. Having been married three times before, John admitted that he no longer
wanted to get married again, no matter how much he loves her. It's not clear how important it was
for Meg to tie the knot, but as for now it's unknown where she stands with her ex-fiance.
When it comes to Hollywood divorces, we will never really know what happens behind the closed doors.
We can do as much digging as we can, but the truth lies with the broken hearts that are
left scattered all over the celebrity world. Did Meg deserve the backlash that she faced
during her divorce? Do you think Russell had anything to do with the couple's split?
Or was Dennis really the bad guy all along? We'll leave that for you juicers to decide.