Following months of near total silence regarding her divorce from Benjamin Millepied in February, actress Natalie Portman revealed how some fierce, yet encouraging, words from Rihanna helped her cope with the process.
Natalie, 43, sat down with Jimmy Fallon on Monday, July 15, and watched a video of herself meeting the singer during a Paris Fashion Week show earlier this year in January.
“You’re one of the hottest bitches in Hollywood,” Rihanna, 36, told the Oscar winner in the video.
Visibly flushed, Natalie replied, “I’m going to faint. I’m going to pass out,” before embracing the pop star.
"I think every woman going through a divorce should get to have Rihanna say to her that she's a bad bitch,” Natalie told Jimmy, 49.
Meeting Rihanna was clearly an impressive moment for the actress. “It was exactly what I needed,” she said.
“That’s a big deal,” Jimmy agreed.
“It was a formative moment in my life,” she added.
See Jimmy Fallon and Wife Nancy's Marriage Timeline Amid 'Crisis' Natalie also talked about the “confidence boost of a lifetime” on Monday’s episode of Today . Discussing the interaction with host Hoda Kotb , the actress spilled that it was “exactly what I needed at that moment in my life.”
“I was so excited to see her,” Natalie continued. “I thought I was just going to go up and tell her that I was a big fan. So it was just a very big compliment that she was so kind to me.”
“She served it to me,” she continued. “I’m forever grateful.”
Richest Women in Music! How Taylor Swift, Beyonce and More Spend Money Natalie first met Benjamin, 47, on the set of Black Swan in 2009. By the following year, Natalie was pregnant with their first child, Adelph, now 13. They confirmed their engagement at the end of 2010.
The couple had been living in France with their son and daughter, Amalia, 7, since marrying in 2012. However, back in June 2023, rumors of Benjamin’s infidelity surfaced , although neither he nor Natalie have addressed the reports.
She worked on moving past it for their children’s sake, but ended up “officially pulling the plug on her marriage,” a source told Life & Style in January.
Natalie finalized her divorce from Benjamin in February , after more than 11 years of marriage. They had quietly separated before then around the time the Star Wars actress first filed the papers in July 2023.
“She really tried forgiving Benjamin — the last thing she imagined in her life was a divorce — but she could not get past the betrayal,” the source added.
“Natalie is proud of how decisive she has been about splitting with Ben and protecting her kids from a drawn-out fight. She’s turning the page and not looking back.”
Apparently, the star kept “a very small social circle” while married, which may prove finding a new partner difficult. Luckily, Brad Pitt and girlfriend Ines de Ramon are on the case.
“Despite their age difference, Brad and Natalie have been friends for around 15 years, and members of their business teams are very close too,” the source dished.
“Brad is proud of his track record of setting people up, and thanks to his new sober, AA-oriented lifestyle, he has a lot of wildly successful friends who are in the exact same spot Natalie is: starting over and trying to build a new life.”
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