Looks like Tim Burton is back on the market just in time for his favorite holiday. In a joint statement to French outlet AFP on Friday, the Sweeney Todd director and Monica Bellucci, Burton’s girlfriend of two years and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice actress, announced that they had called it quits. “It is with much respect and deep care for each other that Monica Bellucci and Tim Burton have decided to part ways,” the statement read. Short but sweet — the opposite of all of Burton’s films.
Burton, 67, and Bellucci, 60, first met in 2006 while on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2022, they crossed paths again when Bellucci presented Burton with an award at the Lumière Festival, also in France. Later that year, the duo were seen holding hands in Madrid, though they didn’t confirm their relationship until they attended the Rome Film Festival together in October 2023. (A romance in three film festivals, if you will.) The following year, Bellucci played Burton’s villain in the 2024 sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
If that muse plot sounds familiar, that’s because Burton had a similar, albeit much longer, trajectory with actress Helena Bonham Carter. From 2001 to 2014, the kooky director cast his partner in a number of films including Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and more. They also welcomed their son, Billy, in 2003, and their daughter, Nell, in 2007. Bellucci, meanwhile, was married to French actor Vincent Cassel of Oceans 12 for four years. The couple had two daughters before they split in 2013.
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Sending my well wishes to the newly single. Here’s hoping this breakup will spawn at least one more romantic tragedy from Burton. Another Corpse Bride perhaps?
