
In HBO's hit 2020 show The Undoing, Hugh Grant stars opposite Nicole Kidman in the twist-filled murder mystery. Amid this tale of high-functioning dysfunctional marriage (written by David E. Kelley, who also helmed Big Little Lies, Kidman's last show-stopping foray into this very specific genre), it's only natural to wonder about the stars' IRL marriages. For the record, Kidman has been married to Keith Urban for nearly 15 years, and while Grant's romantic life has been a bit less consistent during that time period, he finally settled down to give married life a try in 2018. Here's a primer on Grant's relationship status, including the lowdown on his wife, Anna Eberstein.
Who is Hugh Grant's wife?
Anna Eberstein, 41, hails from Sweden and is the co-founder of Ace Slippers, a London-based Scandinavian sock company. She founded the company with her cousin in 2014 "with the aim to bring a more edgy style to the traditional Swedish slipper sock," according to the Ace Slippers website.
Prior to launching her own business, Eberstein earned her master's degree in economics from Sweden's Uppsala University. She went on to work as a promotions producer for marketing and sales at ESPN and masterminded corporate marketing campaigns as a freelance creative producer and director, according to information gathered from a now defunct LinkedIn page by People.
How long have Grant and Eberstein been together?
Though the notoriously private Grant has kept most of the details of his relationship with Eberstein under wraps, their history dates back to at least the beginning of 2012 when Eberstein gave birth to their first child together (and Grant's second), a son named John. Just a few months later, in Dec. 2012, Grant welcomed another son, Felix, with Tinglan Hong, who is also the mother of Grant's first child, a daughter named Tabitha born in Sept. 2011.
News of Grant and Eberstein's relationship didn't break until early 2014, when several news outlets discovered that Grant had been added to Eberstein's son's birth certificate sometime in 2013. By that time, however, the pair had separated, though Grant told a Swedish newspaper in Sept. 2014 that Eberstein and their child lived near him in London. "We are very good friends, and she's a very good mother," he said of Eberstein at the time.
Grant and Eberstein rekindled their romance shortly after, though, since they welcomed their second child together, a daughter, in Dec. 2015, and have been together ever since. They welcomed their third child together—Grant's fifth, for those keeping track at home—in early 2018, just a few months before tying the knot in a low-key civil ceremony on May 25, 2018. In an unexpected twist, the birth of the couple's third child was announced by Elizabeth Hurley, who dated Grant for over a decade in the late '80s and '90s; she accidentally let the news slip on a March 2018 episode of Watch What Happens Live.
What has Hugh Grant said about marriage?
Though the actor has been part of many high-profile romances throughout his decades in the spotlight, it wasn't until 2018, when he was 57 years old, that the "eternal bachelor" finally made marriage moves. He began hinting that he was looking to end his long-term bachelordom not long after getting back with Eberstein: In 2016, he discussed his reformed views of marriage with Howard Stern, saying, "I can see the lovely aspect if you marry exactly the right person, your best friend, and it's cozy and it's lovely," though he went on to add, "I think there's something unromantic about marriage...You're closing yourself off."
It wasn't long before he popped the question to Eberstein. In a 2019 interview, he admitted that his previously long-held beliefs that he didn't want a wife or children were "just plain wrong," and that he had "put [it] off too many decades," per Hello! magazine.
Grant also recently candidly responded to rumors about the reason he married Eberstein. Taking to Twitter in June 2021, the actor shared an image of Google search results that claimed, "Hugh Grant married Anna Eberstein for passport reasons." He set the record straight, writing, "No I didn’t @Internet. I married her because I love her." (And when questioned if he was spending time Googling himself or his wife, he revealed that a friend had sent him the screenshot.)
No I didn’t, @Internet. I married her because I love her. pic.twitter.com/KKuuR6XNGNJune 17, 2021
It's clear Grant and Eberstein have a playful relationship. In an interview with Seth Meyers in November 2020, Grant teased that his wife doesn't actually like any of the rom-coms he's most famous for from Noting Hill or Love Actually. "My wife is the man in our house, really. She likes violent films, gangster films while I'm sitting there watching Roman Holiday or The Sound of Music or something," he said per E.T. "So she's never liked those films I did in the past, which are all romance and stuff. But now she's starting to get a taste for [my work]."
He added that while his wife did enjoy The Undoing, she preferred other actors in the series over him. "She's in love with the murdered lady's husband, played by Ismael Cruz Cordova, and she's very in love with the cop, Edgar Ramírez's part," Grant said coyly.
Andrea Park is a Chicago-based writer and reporter with a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the extended Kardashian-Jenner kingdom, early 2000s rom-coms and celebrity book club selections. She graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism in 2017 and has also written for W, Brides, Glamour, Women's Health, People and more.
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