Natalie Portman says facing speculation about her marriage to Benjamin Millepied has been “terrible”.
Natalie Portman says facing speculation about her marriage to Benjamin Millepied has been ‘terrible’
The ‘Black Swan’ actress, 42, spoke out about rumours she and dancer Benjamin, 46, were having troubles in their relationship in a new interview with Vanity Fair.
When asked about the stories recently published about the pair, Natalie said: “It’s terrible, and I have no desire to contribute to it.”
Natalie – who was born Natalie Hershlag, married Benjamin in 2012 and with whom she has children Aleph, 12, and six-year-old Amalia – also admitted she’s been conscious of how she is perceived by the public since she broke into acting as a girl.
She added: “I got very protective of it very early on. I chose a different name when I started, which was kind of an interesting way that I separated identities. “I would get upset if someone at school called me Natalie Portman. I was like, if you know me, you know me as Natalie Hershlag at school.
“It was kind of an extreme bifurcation of identity that I’ve tried to integrate a little bit more as an adult.
“There wasn’t a ‘real’ me and a ‘pretend’ me,” she said, adding, “they didn’t necessarily have different names. And it’s not just two different versions, there are multitudes of ways other people see me, both public and private, and there are multitudes of ways I see myself.”
Natalie also revealed she lets herself merge all those internal and external attributes that come with fame, adding: “Somehow the intersection of all of those are part of me, and it’s important to have all of those within me and as me, as opposed to being like, that’s some external thing, this is the real thing.
“As I started having kids and a family, I started realizing that maybe it was not helpful to be like, there’s two of me.
“I have many interactions during my day as a public person. To exclude that from my experience is not real.”
Insiders have claimed Natalie and Benjamin are still together.
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