Christine Taylor Reflects on ‘Very Difficult’ Separation from Ben Stiller and How They Found Their ‘Way Back’ to One Another

Kirsty HatcherMon, June 1, 2026 at 3:43 PM UTC

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Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor at the 2025 Vanity Fair Oscar Party
Credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty -

Christine Taylor has shared what she credits for bringing her and husband Ben Stiller back together following their separation

The actress also told The McBride Rewind podcast that her marriage is "stronger and better than ever"

Taylor and Stiller separated in 2017 after 17 years of marriage, but rekindled their romance during the COVID-19 pandemic

Christine Taylor is sharing how she and husband Ben Stiller rekindled their relationship.

Appearing on the The McBride Rewind podcast on May 26, the actress, 54, reflected on the pair’s 2017 separation and what she credits with bringing them back together.

The couple announced their separation after 17 years of marriage in May 2017, with Stiller, 60, confirming they were back together in an interview in February 2022.

“We got back together, we found our way back during COVID,” Taylor said on the podcast. “I met Ben when I was 28 years old … Kids always have growth spurts and you have different chapters and stages in your life, and I feel that’s also true for adults and particularly women. You get married, become a mom, for those who become mothers … career, put your career on hold, all those different chapters, and I think at that moment in time for us, we were just not on the same page with a lot of things.”

The Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story star went on to explain to host Josh McBride that the pair were “working so hard to make it fit and make it right, and I think really when we zoomed out on it, it was like, 'Let’s just put a pause here.’ ”

Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor at the 2026 Meta Gala
Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

“I can talk about it now, but in the moment, it was very difficult to come to that decision,” Taylor continued. “It was not light, it was not without a heavy heart and feeling even dejected at the time, thinking it wasn’t how I imagined it to be and we should be able to work it out.”

Although their separation was “challenging,” the Zoolander star shared that throughout their “space” from each other, they were “always in contact, coparenting and spending time together as a family.”

“If there’s a silver lining for us during COVID, that was the little gift,” Taylor added.

She and Stiller share two children together: Ella, 24, and Quinlin, 20.

“We all kind of bubbled up together with our kids. Our daughter was graduating high school at the time, our son was graduating eighth grade,” Taylor continued, before sharing how the couple were able to rekindle things during that time.

“We all were in the house together and we had nothing but time, nothing but time, so Ben and I spent a lot of time working on us with a therapist, logging onto Zoom to do our therapy sessions and really found the way back,” she added.

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“I think it’s something people don’t love to talk about because it feels like a failure,” she continued, adding that the pair “came out of it” and “really we’re stronger and better than ever.”

Sharing that now they “absolutely make the time” for one another, with Stiller recently driving five hours to visit her on set in Montreal, Taylor added, “I feel really lucky that we found our way back for us.”

(L-R) Ben Stiller, Ella Stiller and Christine Taylor
Credit: Rob Kim/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival)

The Brady Bunch Movie star’s appearance on the podcast comes after Stiller shared how the pair maintained their relationship in an October 2025 interview with The Wall Street Journal.

“Our shared sense of humor is the key to our off-screen relationship,” he told the outlet. “When you’re with somebody for many years, and you go through the ups and downs of life, a sense of humor is just the most important thing, being able to laugh together and want to hang out together.”

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The Focker-In-Law star also told the outlet that he knew Taylor was the one “very early on” in their romance.

“I was like, ‘Oh, I’m really happy being with this person and we have fun together.’ It just felt like an instinctual sort of thing,” he said.

(L-R) Quinlin Stiller, Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor
Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

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The Severance creator and Taylor met in 1999 while working on Heat Vision and Jack, a Fox sitcom that never aired. They tied the knot less than a year later.

Since then the couple has starred in numerous movies together, including Dodgeball, Zoolander, Tropic Thunder, Arrested Development and Zoolander 2.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”