Kelly Preston and John Travolta: What to Know About Their Love Story

Kelly Preston’s husband, John Travolta, and her two kids are in mourning after the actress died at 57 following a private two-year battle with breast cancer. Before her death, the Hollywood couple leaned on each other through some serious highs and lows of life for nearly 30 years of marriage, the last two of which Preston underwent treatment for breast cancer.

Travolta broke the news on social media Sunday night: “It is with a very heavy heart that I inform you that my beautiful wife Kelly has lost her two-year battle with breast cancer. She fought a courageous fight with the love and support of so many,” he wrote in part. Keep scrolling to read how the couple went from co-stars to soulmates before her tragic death.

Love at First Sight

The couple first met at a screen test for their 1989 movie, The Experts, when Preston was still married to actor Kevin Gage. Preston and Gage would split after just two years of marriage, and the actress would go on to date George Clooney, from whom she split in 1989, and Charlie Sheen, whose proposal she turned down, until 1990.

Travolta has long said he fell in love with Preston at first sight, and the actress said on Watch What Happens Live in 2018 that she “kind of” fell in love with him in the same way. “Well, I was not that happily married, let’s put it that way. I was really with the wrong person,” she said at the time.

Dating

When Preston became single, she and Travolta began dating, and their romance moved quickly towards the altar. On New Year’s Eve 1991, Travolta popped the question in Gstaad, Switzerland with a six-carat yellow and white diamond ring.

Soon after, she told Entertainment Tonight that the two planned to “have some babies” quickly. “We’re practicing right now,” she said during her 1991 interview with the outlet. “This could be barefoot and pregnant for the next 10 years.”

Wedding Bells

Preston was two months pregnant with the couple’s first child, son Jett, when they were married on Sept. 5, 1991, by a Scientology minister in an unannounced ceremony at the Hotel de Crillon in Paris. Travolta has been a member of the Church of Scientology since 1975. The couple would get married for a second time in the U.S. in Daytona Beach, Florida.

“I’ve never seen Johnny happier,” Wendy Travolta, wife of John’s brother, Joey, told PEOPLE at the time. “I guess it’s timing. John and Kelly are both ready to settle down.”

Growing the Family

The couple would welcome son Jett on April 13, 1992. Jett suffered some health issues early in life, with Preston telling Montel Williams in 2003 that when he was 2, the toddler became “very, very ill” with what seemed like flu symptoms before being diagnosed with Kawasaki disease, which can cause inflammation of the arteries.

Preston and Travolta gave all their love to Jett, nursing him back to health, and on April 3, 2000, welcomed a second child, daughter Ella Bleu. Ella has followed in her father’s footsteps, starring in the 2019 film, The Poison Rose, alongside her father and Morgan Freeman.

Tragedy Strikes

The Travolta-Preston family suffered a massive loss in 2009, when Jett died at the age of 16, having hit his head in a bathtub after suffering a seizure while on vacation in the Bahamas with his family. 

“[John] never dreamed of this — their relationship was so close,” family attorney Mike Ossi told PEOPLE at the time. “He always said ‘I’m happy as long as my kids are happy.’ He is heartbroken. To bury your son is the worst thing you can ever do.”

Another Baby

Nearly two years later, the couple welcomed son Benjamin to the family, whom Preston and Travolta admitted helped their family move forward in the wake of Jett’s death.

“Certainly having little Ben has been a beautiful kind of glue for us to rebond after tremendous loss,” Travolta said in an interview with Good Morning America at the time. He added to PEOPLE in 2011, “He’s given the house a renewed spirit and purpose.”

28 Years of Marrage

The family has grown together in the good times and bad in the years since, with Preston celebrating her 28th wedding anniversary with Travolta in September 2019. “To my dearest Johnny, the most wonderful man I know. You have given me hope when I have felt lost, loved me patiently and unconditionally… made me laugh harder than any other human being possible… shared the most beautiful highs and at times lows,” she wrote on Instagram at the time. “You’re a dream Daddio and make life so much fun!! I trust my love with you implicitly… with you I know I will always be okay no matter what happens… I love you forever and completely.”