Halle Berry lives a fairytale life on the big screen. However, when it comes to her relationship history the X-Men star has been through more ups and downs than a Six Flags rollercoaster. The Oscar award-winning actress has been linked to some of the most desirable leading men in the world. And most of these romances have fizzled out in a very public way.
Buckle up and hold on tight. Here’s the truth about her messy dating history.
Childhood trauma
Halle was born on August 14, 1966. Her parents divorced when she was 4, only to reunite when she turned 10. Her mother thought the reconciliation would be best for the family. Instead, it only brought chaos to their household.
In an Instagram post for Father’s Day 2019, Halle shared she didn’t have much of a relationship with her dad due to his alcohol addiction. She was estranged from him up until he passed away in 2003. While speaking with The Actor’s Studio, she opened up about feeling hopeless as she watched her dad punish her sister. She said, “I felt helpless and like a coward because I didn’t do anything and couldn’t do anything.”
Her dad allegedly got physical with her mom, as well. Halle admitted what she witnessed early on in life had an effect on her adult years. It took her many years to make sense of everything, to be able to recover and to find her self-esteem.
Early relationships
In hopes of becoming a successful actress, she moved to New York City in 1989. When she wasn’t working, she was getting involved in back-to-back messy relationships. During an appearance at The Mayor’s Fund Benefit, she confessed that she devalued herself and always thought she wasn’t worth true love. Subconsciously, she would always choose partners who mimicked her father.
In 1989, she met a dentist named John Ronan. According to The Mirror, they only dated for a couple of years before going their separate ways. Halle then entered into a few more relationships, including brief romances with New Kids on the Block member Danny Wood and her Jungle Fever co-star, Wesley Snipes.
Though there aren’t a lot of details about her relationship with Wesley, rumors have persisted about their time together. Years later Halle admitted that she had been in several relationships that were physically abusive, including a romance that left her with partial deafness in one ear. Many accused Wesley of being the man behind her injury.
Next came the rumor she was dating her Boomerang co-star, Eddie Murphy, followed by a romance with R&B singer Christopher Williams. Their relationship was put back into the spotlight when Halle started to speak out about the injury she suffered to her ear. Those who didn’t accuse Wesley Snipes blamed Christopher, and Christopher wasn’t having it. He told the Electronic Urban Report, “Wesley Snipes busted her eardrum, not me.”
Meeting David Justice
After about a year and a half together, she and Christopher were over. In February 1992, she was watching the MTV celebrity baseball game when she spotted Atlanta Braves outfielder, David Justice. According to People magazine, Halle was giving an interview with a reporter from David’s hometown of Cincinnati when the reporter mentioned that David was a fan and wanted a photo. Halle reportedly sent back her phone number instead.
Their first phone conversation lasted four hours. Six months later, they were lying in bed when Halle popped the question. On New Year’s Day 1993, they got married at David’s Atlanta home. They settled into their new life together and David would always tell Halle, “I thank God every day for giving you to me.”
Her ex returns
They set up households in Los Angeles and Atlanta. In 1993, Halle landed a role in The Flintstones. That same year, her past came back to haunt her. Her ex-boyfriend, John Ronan, the dentist, filed for bankruptcy. In an attempt to get some extra cash, he came after his now-famous ex-girlfriend, Halle.
According to The Mirror, John said he gave Halle a loan of $80,000 during their relationship. And in order to get his money back, he took her to court. Halle argued that the money was a gift. The court agreed with her, and when they discovered that John didn’t list Halle as a debtor in his bankruptcy filing, the case against her was dismissed.
Halle’s husband David gave her support during this stressful period, but their marriage was slowly falling apart. They were spending a lot of time away from each other due to their respective careers. Nonetheless, she told The Arsenio Hall Show she was David’s “biggest fan.”
She ‘wasn’t the same person’
David had other thoughts about their union. He told People magazine that after a year and half of marriage, their bad days outnumbered the good ones. He said: “She wasn’t the same person I was with before we got married.”
According to David, Halle would get angry whenever he watched ESPN. And every time she allegedly saw a picture of him with another woman near him, she accused him of cheating. David added: “She carried a lot of baggage from her previous relationships. She was always suspicious.”
The couple split in 1996, and things took a turn for the worse. According to People magazine, during their divorce proceedings, David wanted Halle to tell the truth about her relationships with Wesley Snipes and Eddie Murphy. In turn, Halle accused David of trying to intimidate her.
After David attempted to collect his belongings from their Hollywood Hills home, without Halle’s consent, she filed an order of protection which required him to stay 500 yards away from her at all times.
Following the end of their marriage, Halle told Parade magazine that her sense of worth was so low, she tried to take her own life. The only thing that stopped her was the thought of her mom finding her body.
Moving on
She didn’t stay single for long. After her divorce from David was finalized in 1997, she started dating actor Shemar Moore. He told BET he fell hard for the actress. He added: “She was the first woman to really knock my socks off.”
While she was still dating Shemar, Halle met singer Eric Benét after a 1997 concert at the House of Blues. She told People magazine there weren’t any sparks at first but they exchanged email addresses.
She and Shemar broke up, and Halle began swapping emails with Eric for more than a year. It was at this time that Halle told People, “I turned to him and said, ‘You know what? I think I love you.’”
Eric gets exposed
About three years later, Halle and Eric got engaged at the Cleveland premiere of the film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. They were married in January 2001, and Halle even adopted Eric’s daughter, India.
When she won the Oscar award in 2002, she gave a special shout out to her husband, but the good times didn’t last long. Ten days after the awards show, Star magazine published an article that Eric was having an affair with a woman from his past. Halle told Oprah Winfrey that Eric admitted it was true. From there, Eric revealed to her he had engaged in multiple affairs and agreed to go to treatment for intimacy addiction.
Eric later told People magazine he never had a physical affair with anyone while he was with Halle. He said he only went to treatment because he thought it would save their marriage. He added: “I went and heard other people’s stories and realized this is really not my struggle.”
Halle announced their separation in 2003 and their divorce was finalized in 2005.
A custody battle
Halle was back on the market. She met Michael Ealy on the set of their TV movie Their Eyes Were Watching God in 2004. She told InStyle (via People), “After my last relationship [with actor Michael Ealy] broke up I was feeling like, well, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to be in a relationship, it’s just that I thought it would be okay to be on my own.”
In November 2006, she met model Gabriel Aubry at a Versace photoshoot. Things were going great between them. Halle became pregnant and gave birth to their daughter, Nahla, in 2008. Their relationship ended in 2010 and both went their separate ways. However, their custody fight made headlines.
There were explosive allegations, including Halle accusing Gabriel of calling her inappropriate names. Things went downhill from there and rolled right into her next relationship with Olivier Martinez.
An explosive fight
She and Olivier met in 2010 while working on the movie Dark Tide. They got engaged in January 2012. She made plans to take Nahla to live in Olivier’s hometown in France, but a judge denied her request.
On Thanksgiving day, 2012, Halle’s tranquil world exploded when Olivier and her ex-Gabriel got into a physical altercation outside her Los Angeles home. According to E! Online, Gabriel was treated at a local hospital and was subsequently arrested for physically attacking Olivier.
Halle announced her second pregnancy in April 2013, and she and Olivier got married in France in July of that same year. She delivered their baby boy in October. Then two years later, Halle filed for divorce. Olivier followed up the next day with his own filing, both citing irreconcilable differences. A source later told People magazine that Olivier’s temper, plus the fact they were stuck in Los Angeles and unable to move back to France, caused tension in the marriage.
What’s next for Halle?
After three divorces, Halle has taken time to reflect. According to HuffPost, she spoke at the 2017 City Summit indicating that she occasionally feels responsible for her breakups. However, she still has an optimistic outlook. She stated: “Those relationships provided me with lessons that got me to where I am right now.”
In 2017, she was linked to British music producer Alex da Kid. There’s also rumors she’s hooking up with her trainer, Peter Lee Thomas, but that rumor has yet to be confirmed. Regardless of her relationship status, we wish Halle all the best and hope she truly finds that fairytale ending.
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