Michelle Williams secretly married singer-songwriter Phil Elverum in a private ceremony earlier this month.
Williams and Elverum married in the Adirondacks in upstate New York, according to a newly-published Vanity Fair profile of the actress. Only a small group of friends and their two daughters were in attendance. Elverum, 40, has a 3-year-old daughter, Agathe, from a previous relationship. Williams also has a daughter, Matilda, 12, from her relationship with the late Heath Ledger.
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The two met through mutual friends and have both suffered personal losses. Elverum’s wife, Geneviรจve Castrรฉe, died from pancreatic cancer in 2016, 18 months after Agathe’s birth.
Williams told Vanity Fair her relationship with Elverum is “very sacred and very special.”
“I never gave up on love,” Williams added, saying she was looking for the same “radical acceptance” she got from Ledger after her Brokeback Mountain co-star died in 2008.
“Obviously I’ve never once in my life talked about a relationship, but Phil isn’t anyone else,” Williams said. “And that’s worth something. Ultimately the way he loves me is the way I want to live my life on the whole. I work to be free inside of the moment. I parent to let Matilda feel free to be herself, and I am finally loved by someone who makes me feel free.”
Williams is known for keeping her private life out of the headlines, but she decided to make an exception in this case.
“I don’t really want to talk about any of it,” the Venom actress said. “But there’s that tease, that lure, that’s like, ‘What if this helps somebody? What if somebody who has always journeyed in this way, who has struggled as much as I struggled, and looked as much as I looked, finds something that helps them?’”
In her pursuit for love after tragedy, Williams said she learned not to settle.
“Don’t settle for something that feels like a prison, or is hard, or hurts you. If it doesn’t feel like love, it’s not love,” Williams said.
News of Williams’ first wedding came as a shock. In January, she was reportedly engaged to Andrew Youmans, a New York financier. She was previously linked to director Spike Jonze, actor Jason Segel and author Jonathan Safran Foer, following Ledger’s death.
Williams’ wedding was not the only surprise for fans of the four-time Oscar nominee. According to The Hollywood Reporter, she will star in Fosse/Verdon, an eight-episode FX miniseries from Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Sam Rockwell will play the legendary stage director and choreographer Bob Fosse, while Williams will star as dancer Gwen Verdon. Steven Levenson (Dear Evan Hansen) is the showrunner and Thomas Kail (Hamilton) will direct. Nicole Fosse, Verdon and Fosse’s daughter, is a co-executive producer on the project.
Photo Credit: Noam Galai / Getty Images for New York Magazine
