Martha Stewart Dumped Anthony Hopkins Because of Hannibal Lecter
Martha Stewart revealed why she ended her relationship with Anthony Hopkins — it’s because she couldn’t separate the actor from his most notorious film role.
Appearing on The Ellen Show yesterday (January 20), the 80-year-old lifestyle guru said she had to break up with the Welsh actor, 84, after seeing his chilling performance in the 1991 horror-thriller The Silence of the Lambs.
If you’ve never seen the film, Hopkins portrayed Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a convicted serial killer who ate his victims. While his critically acclaimed performance earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1992, it cost him his relationship with Stewart. Watch a trailer of The Silence of the Lambs below:
During a game called, “Where’s the Lie, Martha?” three clues appeared on the screen, which read: “I dated Sir Anthony Hopkins but broke up with him because I couldn’t stop thinking of him as Hannibal Lecter,” “I was asked to host SNL and my biggest regret is saying no,” and “I have a tattoo of my dog Créme Brûlée on my foot.”
Host Ellen DeGeneres chose the Sir Anthony Hopkins clue as a “lie,” but Stewart revealed that it was indeed true. Stewart admitted she was too worried about life imitating art if she were to continue dating Hopkins. “I have a big, scary house in Maine that’s way by itself on 100 acres in the forest, and I couldn’t even imagine taking Anthony Hopkins there,” Stewart said laughing to the talk show host. “I couldn’t — all I could think of was him eating, you know…” When DeGeneres asked Stewart if she ended things with the actor “because of that,” she replied, “Yeah.”
Watch the clip below:
https://youtu.be/fHDifL-Mk1E
While it’s unclear when Stewart and the Hollywood star dated, it’s likely that it was before Hopkins married his third wife, Stella Arroyave, in 2003. Stewart, who divorced her ex-husband Andrew Stewart in 1990 after almost 30 years of marriage, previously spoke about her fleeting romance with Hopkins during a 2014 appearance on The Meredith Vieira Show, saying they “went out to dinner” a couple of times but insisted “a girl should kiss and never tell” when Vieira asked if they “made out.”
