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:
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.”
