In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, several romances blossomed behind the scenes. One of the most
prominent relationships to come out of the movie was between Jennifer Grey and Matthew Broderick .
In fact, the two became so close on set that they got engaged while filming! A year later, though,
Matthew and Jennifer were involved in a crash that changed the course of their entire lives. Today,
we’re looking into the romance, the tragedy, and the recovery Jennifer had with a famous A-lister.
Jennifer Grey and Matthew Broderick were in a relationship in the mid-80s, during the height of
their stardom. The couple were two of Hollywood’s most famous faces, starring together in the hit
teen comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. “It started while we made the film,”
said Grey. “It was tricky, because it was a secret. No one knew.” When the
cameras stopped rolling, they were madly in love. They kept it a secret from the rest of the cast
and crew to keep things professional. Yet, a love triangle emerged when the actor who played Sloane,
Mia Sara developed strong feelings for Broderick. “I had the biggest crush on Matthew,” Sara
admitted. “And I threw myself at him repeatedly, and he very wisely turned me down.
I think I was pretty annoying, frankly.” “Yeah, it was a tough life, back when I
was 23 or whatever,” Matthew joked. “Beautiful girls throwing themselves at me. Mia Sara was
absolutely lovely and gorgeous. I do not think I wisely rejected her,
but I was getting involved with Jennifer at the time, so I couldn’t figure out how to share
myself. I couldn’t double it up, you know.” Because the two were in love in real life,
yet bitter rivals on-screen, it led to some complications while filming.
According to Grey, there were scenes she had to shoot where she couldn’t stop laughing.
The Brat Pack memoir titled You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried best describes the incident.
While shooting the scene at the end of the movie — when Ferris was hoping to get back to his
“sickbed” before his parents catch him and Jeanie helps him escape — Grey got
the giggles. She simply couldn’t shake it. “I got the giggles so bad that they had
to basically stop production. I full-on couldn’t get it together for anything.”
The producers would tell her to take a walk, and she would, and then it would
start again… The giggling, according to Jennifer, was because of all the energy between the couple.
And because of their romance, along with many other factors, Grey considers making
Ferris Bueller the best experience of her life. “I maybe had the best experience of my life,
maybe of all time,” she said. “We were all very tight, and it was a very special group.
We would go to restaurants in Chicago, and we’d go running around in the lake.”
Sadly, back when the couple was enjoying their youth and starting to enjoy their careers,
they were involved in a car accident that would change their entire lives.
In 1987, Grey was on her way to stardom thanks to Dirty Dancing. But before the iconic film was
released, the pair decided to take a romantic vacation that would later turn into a tragedy.
On August 5, Jennifer and Matthew rented a car and planned a drive in Northern Ireland.
However, a downpour of rain slowed them down, and they stopped at a gas station.
Later, they got lost and stopped to ask a police officer for directions.
The officer recommended a better route for them to take, but Broderick continued his path.
The police officer followed behind for a while. 80 miles west of Belfast, they collided head-on
with a car driven by a woman named Anna Gallagher. She was driving with her mother, Margaret.
Both women were pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
Ken Ramsey, a local fireman on the scene, said the car had to be cut down the side to give Broderick
first aid. Ramsey recalled the actor kept repeating, “Did I hurt them? Did I hurt them?”
And while the actor suffered from a badly broken leg and facial lacerations,
resulting in a four-week hospital stay in Belfast, Grey only obtained minor injuries.
After the crash, the actor was charged with causing death by dangerous driving
and faced up to five years behind bars. However, he was later convicted of a lesser charge of
careless driving and fined $175, which Anna and Margaret’s family called a “travesty of justice.”
Many in Ireland were upset that Broderick got off by paying a fine
and that he returned to the United States when he paid bail of $4,075. He was not
charged with vehicular manslaughter and left only a note saying he was sorry.
Coming to the point of peace over the accident was more challenging for Grey because she suddenly
found herself in the middle of the promotion for the upcoming release of Dirty Dancing.
The actress took a much more personal approach to come to terms with what
had happened. She did not speak about the situation publicly until many years later.
She also experienced great physical pain from the accident and had to undergo a period of recovery.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Grey recalled the incident, saying,
“The car accident in Ireland was, I would say, top three traumas of my life, maybe top one.
I thought Broderick was dead. I didn’t even know there were two other women who were tragically
killed at the time. It’s just something that you just don’t come back from in the same way.”
“Broderick was a great driver, and nobody was drinking. And it was tragic, and I think about the
family in Ireland all the time,” Grey continued. After years of therapy, Matthew decided to
meet with the family of the two women who tragically passed. He and Martin Doherty had
a meeting after the birth of Broderick’s first child with Sarah Jessica Parker.
Martin said that while he still grieves the loss of his mom and sister, he knows Broderick did
not kill them deliberately. He shared that he had forgiven the actor and felt no anger towards him.
Evidently, Grey and Broderick’s romance did not survive the aftermath of the tragedy.
Their relationship had grown “toxic,” according to Jennifer, but she pretended they could make
things right. Then, he begged her not to fly to Los Angeles for her first major movie premiere.
“Flying home for the premiere of my first big movie meant only one thing:
that I was not a good person,” she noted. She went despite the
guilt and she was soon back with Broderick in his hospital room.
Eventually, she was getting an “insane amount of coverage” for her role as Baby and some “really
great” reviews. She hoped he would share in her excitement but recalled him saying,
“I really don’t want to hear this.” Grey eventually ended the relationship.
They later reconciled and became engaged, but it didn’t work out that time, either. They
split up in 1988. Madonna even wrote her song ‘Express Yourself’ about the couple’s breakup.
In 1997, 10 years after the incident, Broderick married Sarah Jessica Parker in a small ceremony.
They have a son and twin girls. Despite being married for 25 years, the couple are
no strangers to divorce rumors. However, they’ve proven that these rumors are just that — rumors,
and keep going strong. After that fateful relationship,
Grey was involved in another high-profile romance with none other than Johnny Depp. Apparently,
while weathering the storm, she was set up on a blind date by her agent.
Jennifer admitted that her relationship with Johnny made up for the hardship she faced.
“Energetically, what it was like being with him, it was like, ‘Oh, I’m being totally,
totally compensated for the sh*t I just went through,’” she wrote
in her book, Out of the Corner: A Memoir. “This guy was sweet, and loving, and romantic, and
crazy about me, and beautiful. I was in desperate need of rebounding into something that looked and
felt like 1989 Johnny Depp,” Grey told People. The famous pair only dated for a year.
However, the relationship was quite serious — the Pirates of the Caribbean actor even asked
the actress to marry him. Jennifer accepted Johnny’s proposal just two weeks into dating!
“On August 12, I wrote in my journal, ‘I’m in love, pretty sure for the first
time in my life … He’s kind, funny, smart, moral, thoughtful, respectful,’” she wrote.
Their engagement lasted nine months, but their relationship didn’t survive Depp’s fast-rising
career. The wedding was set to occur the following year, but it would never come to pass.
The Red Oaks actress claimed that Depp became increasingly frustrated as he
started to become known as a Hollywood heartthrob. She then promptly ended their
relationship just before her 29th birthday. After the pair called it quits, Johnny went
on to date Winona, and Jennifer would go on to marry actor Clark Gregg in 2001. They welcomed
daughter Stella two months later. The couple separated in 2020, after 19 years of marriage.
And almost 35 years after Dirty Dancing, Jennifer Grey is taking herself out of the corner.
“That’s a new feeling,” she told People. “To take myself out of the corner — and
to recognize that I have been putting myself there, through story, through narratives that
weren’t giving me the best life. The story I was telling myself about how I got here was not
a great story. And not entirely true.” The actress and writer has never felt
more comfortable in her own skin, and we cannot be happier for her!
Could a reconciliation with Johnny be possible? Hey, stranger things have happened!
That’s all we have for you today, Juicers! As always,
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