Julia Roberts has never been short of headlines, but this time her words have detonated like a bombshell across Hollywood. At 57, the actress has stepped into uncharted territory, tearing down the carefully polished façade of her private life to reveal a story she says has weighed on her for more than three decades: a hidden, passionate affair with her Pretty Woman co-star, Richard Gere.
What the world thought it knew about Roberts—the wide smile, the golden-girl charm, the star who turned rom-coms into box-office gold—was only part of the truth. Behind the scenes, she says, there was a different story, one written in hurried notes, secret meetings, and the intoxicating chemistry of two people who couldn’t stay away from one another, even when the cameras stopped rolling. “I lived with a secret for over 30 years,” she confessed in her startling revelation, a confession that ᵴtriƥs bare the fragile line between love and illusion.
It began in 1989, during the auditions for Pretty Woman. Roberts, then just 22, handed Gere a handwritten note that simply said: “Please say yes.” That moment, she now admits, was not only about casting—it was the spark of something deeper. Their on-screen chemistry quickly spilled into real life. On set, the pair created the illusion of Hollywood’s perfect couple, but off set they slipped into a hidden romance that would shadow them for decades.
The cracks in Roberts’ public life soon began to show. In June 1991, just days before she was set to marry actor Kiefer Sutherland, she famously fled the wedding. At the time, it was chalked up to cold feet and tabloid speculation. But Roberts now claims her decision was driven by her unresolved love for Gere. While he moved on—marrying supermodel Cindy Crawford—Roberts attempted to silence her heartache by marrying country singer Lyle Lovett, a union she now describes as “a desperate escape.”
Even in those years apart, she insists, the flame never went out. They exchanged secret messages, met in secluded spots, and maintained a thread of intimacy hidden from the world. By the mid-1990s, the tabloids had begun sniffing around, splashing rumors of their affair across covers and turning Roberts into Hollywood’s “runaway bride” long before she played the role on screen. “I still loved him,” Roberts admits. “That love made me the villain in a story I didn’t know how to rewrite.”
Their reunion in 1999, during the filming of Runaway Bride, brought everything back to the surface. The old spark returned effortlessly, their chemistry as undeniable off set as it was on. Roberts describes those weeks as both exhilarating and agonizing: “We still loved. We still missed. We still craved each other. But we were no longer free.” The film became a meta-commentary on her own life, a mirror in which she saw both the love that had defined her and the choices that had kept it hidden.
Her confession today reframes her legacy. Julia Roberts is no longer only the radiant face of Pretty Woman or the Oscar-winning star of Erin Brockovich. She is a woman exposing the hidden cost of fame, the compromises of desire, and the ache of a love that was never allowed to bloom in daylight. “Does love always need the light?” she asks. It is a question that resonates far beyond her own story, striking at the heart of what it means to love, to lose, and to keep secrets in a world that demands perfection.
For Hollywood, the revelation is seismic. For Roberts, it is catharsis. And for fans, it is a reminder that even those who seem untouchable live with shadows, longing, and regrets. The saga of Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, once confined to the realm of fantasy, has now spilled into reality—and as Roberts herself admits, the story is not over.
