Naomi Watts' Husband Had A Scandalous Love Life Before They Got Married

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Naomi Watts had quite the relationship history before marrying Billy Crudup in 2023. But then again, so did her "Morning Show" star husband. A few years after speculation of their relationship began, and a little over a year after they made their red carpet debut as a couple at the 2022 SAG Awards, Watts announced that she and Crudup were "hitched" in a June 2023 Instagram post. The couple's low-key relationship today, however, is a far cry from their complicated romantic pasts, including Crudup's messy entanglement with two recognizable women in the industry.

In the early 2000s, Crudup was embroiled in a headline-making, tumultuous breakup with "Weeds" star Mary-Louise Parker after he left her for a younger woman: actor Claire Danes. Parker and Crudup fell in love in 1996 after co-starring in Broadway's "Bus Stop." Before their 2003 split, the Hollywood couple learned they were expecting their first child together. But on the cusp of their son's birth, Crudup and Parker unexpectedly separated.

In 2004, the same year that Crudup and Parker welcomed their child, the "Almost Famous" actor subtly confirmed his relationship with Danes — whom he met on the set of the film "Stage Beauty" — with PDA photos of the pair in New York, despite denying their relationship to the press. Crudup and Danes were vilified by the press, while Parker was left in a challenging personal situation. Though no party has exhaustively discussed their contentious love triangle, Danes, Parker, and Crudup have all alluded to their messy past.

Of course, it's unsurprising that Billy Crudup and Claire Danes want to sweep their sordid past under the rug. In 2004, while Crudup was still dating the "Homeland" alum — before the pair broke up in 2007 — he briefly addressed his complicated private life in an email to The New York Times before an interview with the publication. "First and foremost it is personal, painful and involves an infant," he said, also writing that "[it] does not deserve to be exploited to sate the appetites of circulation counters and bored readers."

For her part, Danes, who was 24 at the time of her relationship with Crudup, blamed her naivety for getting herself mixed up with a soon-to-be father. "That was a scary thing," she said of the backlash she received in a 2015 interview with Howard Stern (via Vanity Fair). "I was just in love with him, and needed to explore that, and I was 24 . . . I didn't quite know what those consequences would be."

Mary-Louis Parker has also maintained her dignity despite the hand she was dealt. She criticized the press and the public for sticking their nose in her and Crudup's business, telling New York Magazine in 2007: "It's weird to me the way that people receive it. Not so much that they speculate on it, but that they feel they have the right to comment on it." However, in an excerpt from her book, "Dear Mr. You," the "Institute" actor alluded to her heartbreak in an anecdote about an argument she had with a cab driver, writing (via Us Weekly): "I am alone. Look, see? I am pregnant and alone. It hurts to even breathe."