Exes Billy Crudup and Claire Danes reunited at NYU’s Tisch Gala this week, more than two decades after a cheating scandal led to the downfall of Crudup’s relationship with his then-pregnant partner, Mary-Louise Parker.
The “Morning Show” star, 56, approached the 45-year-old “Homeland” actress, looking giddy as they hugged and briefly schmoozed during Monday’s event, held at Manhattan’s Cipriani South Street, according to video published by People.
Multiple commenters signaled to Parker, who was seven months pregnant with the pair’s son, William, in 2003, when he dumped her for Danes, who he’d met working on the film “Stage Beauty.”
The following year, in correspondence with a New York Times writer working on a profile of Crudup, he referred to the ordeal as “personal [and] painful” situation that “involves an infant, and does not deserve to be exploited,” while refusing to comment any further.
A decade later, Danes addressed the scandal more directly during an interview on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show.
“That was a scary thing. It was really hard,” she said of the backlash they received. “I didn’t know how to not do that. 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.”
Crudup and Parker had been together since 1996. Following their split, he and Danes, both native New Yorkers, continued their relationship until 2007.
Two years later, Danes married British actor Hugh Dancy, with whom she shares three children. In 2023, Crudup married Naomi Watts, after meeting on the set of 2017’s “Gypsy.” Neither Dancy nor Watts appeared to be at Monday’s event, according to Us Weekly.
