‘Lost’ Actor Reflects on ‘Devastating’ Break-up With Co-Star Evangeline Lilly

Lost actor Dominic Monaghan talked about the only time he really experienced heartbreak during a recent stop on Anna Faris’ podcast Unqualified. Monaghan dated his co-star and future Ant-Man star Evangeline Lilly from 2004 to 2007. The Lord of the Rings actor took responsibility for the relationship ending, noting that he partied and drank whenever he wasn’t working on Lost.

“I’ve only really got my heart broken once in my life,” Monaghan told Faris, via E! News. “I was dating an actress on Lost called Evangeline Lilly, who, you know, has gone on to have a name all of her own. I don’t really know how she would explain the narrative, but from my point of view, it was probably the first time in my life that I was all in.”

Monaghan, 45, said the two even talked about getting married and starting a family. However, his partying lifestyle on weekends doomed them. He said he would “only consider it a weekend if I was drunk out of my mind on a Friday and Saturday night.” Lilly just wasn’t interested in that lifestyle.

“I think if you are drinking often, probably your behavior, choices and mood are up for debate and I think Evie was pretty straight down the middle… I was always the guy that wanted more,” he told Faris. “Unfortunately, there was a bit of a crossover which was upsetting for me and it exploded in my face in an awful way.”

Someone eventually told Monaghan that Lilly was allegedly seeing someone else while they were still together. “I genuinely think they were trying to help. They didn’t think I had all the facts and thought there was a chance the island of Oahu was laughing at me,” he said, referring to the Hawaiian island where Lost was filmed. The split felt even more devastating to Monaghan because he thought members of the crew kept Lilly’s alleged cheating a secret from him.

After their split, Monaghan realized he needed to change his lifestyle. Two months after they broke up, Monaghan said he woke up on the kitchen floor and had no idea where he was. “I was surrounded by pills and I was messed up on medication,” the actor explained. “I sat up and looked at this mess in front of me and thought ‘this could have been it.’ I could have accidentally taken the wrong cocktail of stuff mixed with alcohol, mixed with where my head’s at, and that could have been it. At that point, it was a big turning point.”

Lilly and Monaghan never publicly commented on their breakup. The closest either of them came was in 2013, when a fan asked Monaghan about Lilly’s appearance in The Hobbit. “Nah. I don’t date cheaters,” he replied. Today, Lilly is in a long-term relationship with Norman Kali, with him she shares two sons.

Monaghan now stars in the AMC+ series Moonhaven. He also hosts The Friendship Onion podcast with his fellow Lord of the Rings star, Billy Boyd. Over the summer, they recorded episodes at Fan Expo conventions throughout North America.