A surefire sign that spooky season is, in fact, upon us: Italian actor Monica Bellucci and macabre filmmaker Tim Burton recently announced with a joint statement that they are no longer a couple.
“It is with much respect and deep care for each other that Monica Bellucci and Tim Burton have decided to part ways,” read the note released by the pair to the AFP agency on Friday. Those words suggest the breakup was amicable, a sentiment echoed by Bellucci herself in an interview with Vogue Italia—her first since confirming the split. “There are roads that, at a certain point, cross for a path that continues forever…Tim’s road and mine met to make a path together and then split again,” said Bellucci. “As long as I live, however, Tim will always have a unique place in my heart.”
The love story between the actress and the director began around October 2022, when they met at the Lumière Festival in Lyon. In 2023, Bellucci spoke about their relationship in an interview with Elle France: “What I can say…I’m glad I met the man, first of all,” she said. “It’s one of those encounters that rarely happens in life…I know the man, I love him and now I’m going to meet the director—another adventure begins..”
During their time together, Burton directed Bellucci in last year’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice—a sequel to his 1988 horror classic. They had made their joint red carpet debut long before then—at the Rome Film Festival in October 2023, for the premiere of Bellucci’s film, Diabolik: Who Are You? Their last public appearance came in June, at the Taormina Film Festival. They walked the carpet hand in hand. Just a few months after their final outing as a couple came news that the honeymoon was over.
Prior to his nearly three-year romance with Bellucci, Burton welcomed two children with longtime love Helena Bonham Carter before their breakup in 2014. Prior to that decade-plus relationship, Burton was married to German artist Lena Gieseke, ending in 1991 after four years. Meanwhile, Bellucci was only 23 in 1990 when she secretly wed Argentine photographer Claudio Carlos Basso. Later that decade, Bellucci had moved onto Vincent Cassel: the two, who met in 1996 on the set of the film L’Appartement, married in 1999 and had two daughters. In 2013, following 14 years together, Bellucci and Cassell parted ways. Perhaps each of their past loves hold “a unique place” in each other’s hearts.
Originally published in Vanity Fair Italia
