Anna Faris Explains Why Her ‘Hand Was Forced’ in Chris Pratt Divorce

Anna Faris and Chris Pratt split in August 2017 after eight years of marriage, and Faris reflected on that breakup and others during the May 3 podcast episode of her podcast, Anna Faris Is Unqualified. “For me, I think after every breakup, at some point I realize that there were a lot of things I ignored that I really shouldn’t have,” she told guest Rachel Bilson.

“In hindsight, it felt like my hand was forced. I don’t think it was ever an independent decision,” she continued. The Mom star was married to Ben Indra from 2004-2008 and Pratt from 2009-2017, and she and Pratt share 8-year-old son Jack. Faris told Bilson that one of the things she struggled with during her marriage to Pratt was not having a close group of female friends to talk about her issues with.

“I think it stunted me in a lot of ways,” she admitted. “One of them being that I never talked about any issues, so to the people, even who I was closest to, I’m sure things were more transparent with my relationship with Ben, but with Chris, I think that we both protected that imagery even within our close circles.”

Faris is now engaged to engaged to cinematographer Michael Barrett and Pratt married Katherine Schwarzenegger in 2019. The couple welcomed daughter Lyla in August 2020. During Monday’s podcast, Faris took a call from a listener who called off their engagement, and Faris seemed to indicate that she wasn’t 100 percent going in to one of her previous marriages.

“I really feel like calling off an engagement is a smarter, stronger, braver move than what I did,” she said. “Which was like, ‘Well, I guess everyone is expecting this, so let’s just go through with it.’” Faris and Barrett began dating around October 2017 and keep their relationship private, which Faris explained on a 2019 episode of her podcast.

“This is a tricky area for me because I’ve gone through two divorces now,” she said. “I’m in an amazing relationship, I do want to talk to everybody about these things, that I don’t really know much about. But I also feel that I want to protect things in a way that I hadn’t considered before.” She added that it’s “difficult” for her because she wants her listeners to “know who I am.”

“I want to be honest and up front,” she continued. “But it also feels like, am I letting too much scrutiny [in]?” The 41-year-old added, “I do think that I owe my listeners, because I attempt to give advice that’s usually not great or whatever, so I owe them my honesty if they’re being honest with me. But that’s been a trickier territory for me, and I’m still kind of figuring out all of that.”