Chynna Phillips Bares All About Her Marriage Woes With Billy Baldwin
Nothing can bring out a fight between a couple quite like a cross-country move — an unfortunate reality that Wilson Phillips singer Chynna Phillips learned the hard way while moving from the East Coast to southern California with her husband, Billy Baldwin. The musician shared how their recent move played into the couple's historically tumultuous relationship in an installment of her "California Preachin'" YouTube series on April 22, 2024.
"Moving is so hard," Phillips said as she walked around her sunny California neighborhood. "It definitely creates a perfect nesting ground for bickering, arguing, and stress-ure. So, Billy and I have been kind of going at it these past couple of days. We've just been getting on each other's last nerve, which is frustrating because just when I feel like we're on a roll and things are starting to get better, we start the bickering again."
Phillips and Baldwin are no strangers to contentious dynamics. 15 years after the couple married in 1995, Phillips filed for divorce from Baldwin before withdrawing her request days later. The Grammy-nominated singer credits the couple's focus on communication as what helped save their marriage, and they used the same skills during their cross-country trek.
Chynna Phillips said she doesn't want to tiptoe around Billy Baldwin's feelings (or vice versa)
When Chynna Phillips first filed for divorce from her husband of (then) 15 years, she told Us Weekly it was because she "started to feel a little flatlined, like I need more and want more, and I know we deserve more from our marriage." The voice behind the viral "Holy Spirit Activate" TikTok audio said that part of the "more" she was looking for was better communication, which the couple worked on together in therapy. Luckily, it seems like Phillips and Billy Baldwin were able to put some of those interpersonal skills to good use when they moved to the West Coast.
In her video, Phillips said Baldwin asked her what she wanted during a particularly heated argument. "I said, 'I want us to communicate properly,'" she recalled. "He kind of stopped, gained his composure, and I did the same, and then we were able to have, you know, like a normal conversation about what we were both upset about. It was definitely a victory for us."
Phillips says that she and Baldwin struggle to avoid toxic communication loops where both parties are too emotionally triggered to communicate effectively. The singer said she began keeping her true feelings from Baldwin out of fear of putting him on edge, but she also acknowledged that this apprehension was doing more harm than good. "I'm causing more trouble in our marriage by doing that," she confessed.
The couple's rough patches escalate around major life changes
Unsurprisingly, it seems like most of Billy Baldwin and Chynna Phillips' marriage problems pop up around the same time as major internal and external life changes. The actor and musician share three children together: Jameson, Vance, and Brooke, born in 2000, 2001, and 2004, respectively. The couple, who began dating in 1991, struggled with empty nest syndrome after their youngest daughter, Brooke, left for college in 2022. In a September 2023 YouTube video, Phillips said their new dynamic was "a scary reality that we both feel uncomfortable admitting."
For Phillips, her solution to empty nest syndrome was to take a deeper dive into her faith. She's become an outspoken proponent of faith-based living, using her YouTube series "California Preachin'" to share daily devotionals, musings on Christianity, and more. But this, too, caused unforeseen problems between her and her husband. Phillips confessed in a January 2024 video that she didn't think Baldwin knew how to react to her newfound faith.
However, she argued, "I'm not the same person I was 30 years ago, and I refused to have the same marriage that we had 30 years ago. It's time for us to mature and grow." Despite the couple's inevitable ups and downs, it seems like both the singer featured on "Bridesmaids" and her "Backdraft" star hubby are working hard to keep their relationship going.