Duration: Dated almost four years
Ages: 33 and 37
Previous pairings: Roberts was married to country star Lyle Lovett for two years; engaged to Dylan McDermott and Kiefer Sutherland (the latter of whom she jilted practically on their wedding day for Jason Patric) ; dated Liam Neeson, Daniel Day-Lewis and Matthew Perry. Bratt was in a long-term relationship with documentary filmmaker Monica McClure and dated actress Jennifer Esposito for eight months.
Love story: She walked into a New York restaurant in 1997 and spotted him, and “it was like something hit me over the head with a bat,” she has said. She got herself introduced, and the romance began. After he left Law & Order in 1999, they visited each other on their respective film sets. They cuddled in New York, where they both own apartments, and often visited San Francisco, where Bratt’s mother lives. He was by her side through this year’s awards-show circuit. In her Globes speech in January, she thanked Bratt for being the one to say “Have a good day, honey,” and “How was your day, honey?”
What went wrong? Friends say it was career vs. commitment; basically, he wanted her to settle down, get married, live in San Francisco and cut back on her movie load. Roberts reportedly tried to save the relationship by visiting him on the Montreal set of Abandon in May. The breakup reportedly happened soon after, by most reports Bratt’s call.
Post-split romance: Roberts denied on Late Night with David Letterman that her Ocean’s Eleven co-star George Clooney played any part in the breakup. “My only regret is that the media can’t accept [our breakup],” Roberts said. “It has to be all about me going out with George Clooney. [He’s] a kind and loving man, but not my boyfriend.” Clooney, who found out about the split while he was in Italy, has quipped that he’s been “too busy breaking up Tom and Nicole‘s marriage.”
What they’ve said: Last week Roberts told Letterman, “I love Benjamin. He’s a good man, he’s a fine man. He is, to the exultation of the female single population, not my man anymore. It’s sad but true. Not ugly, not because it’s anybody else, [but] it’s a parting of the ways … that’s all there is to it. We’re two kids trying to find our way in the world.”
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