You might be familiar with the film industry and how famous stars are often times spotted marrying each other, but did you know that the actors Robert Pattinson and Bella Thorne are also married in real life?
The British actor recently opened up about his blended family and the joys of parenting, as well as revealing that he and his wife have been married for almost 12 years and have two children together. We take a look at the facts surrounding their real-life romance and subsequent marriage.
Early Beginnings
The 35-year-old actor, who gained notoriety for his role as Cedric in the Harry Potter series, first began seeing the 23-year-old Thorne at a dinner party in 2008. “I’d been at the party for a while and was chatting to her brother when I realized that she was the only one I was really interested in talking to. I asked him if he wanted to walk home together and he said yes,” Pattinson recalled to The Huffington Post in 2017. “She was so petite. I remember thinking she was so cute. And then we just started walking and talking.”
The following year, Pattinson, who was 26 at the time, traveled to Los Angeles with his mother to meet Thorne’s family. While he was there, he proposed to her and she said yes. “I really liked her father,” he said of his future wife. “He was like this wise old man who was very kind to me. It was so romantic.”
First Child
The couple, who had been dating for a little over a year, became parents in April 2012 when Pattinson delivered a daughter they named Grace. “She was born during the day and the nurse came and took her away and I remember looking for her for hours. Then my father-in-law brought her back a little while later,” the actor recalled. “It was a lot of work but so worth it.”
The next year, they had another daughter, Sophia, although the two hadn’t met until Sophia was three weeks old, which meant that she was essentially raised by Pattinson and Thorne as a single parent. “I was a full-time actor and she was a student at UCLA. But we did get a babysitter in between,” Pattinson told The New York Times in 2014. “She would come in and help us out with the kids so she could study.”
Romantic Getaway
The pair had been engaged for almost a year when they decided to take their relationship to the next level and got married on December 31, 2013 in a lavish ceremony that was streamed live on YouTube. “It was almost midnight and I remember looking at [my wife] and thinking, ‘This is it. This is what I want,’” he said. “I had bought a ring the week before and I remember putting it on her finger and looking into her eyes.”
Less than a month after their wedding, the couple jetted off for a romantic getaway to Tulum, Mexico, where they were secretly filmed by a pair of paparazzi capturing some truly intimate moments. “We wanted to have some time alone, away from the distractions of the world,” the actor said of the idyllic trip. “We booked a room at this beautiful hotel called Hacienda Maya and it was just the two of us for the whole weekend.”
The following year, the newlyweds returned to Tulum for their first international tour. “It was one of the most beautiful ceremonies,” Pattinson said of the Mayan wedding. “The energy was really good. There was this feeling of connecting with nature and with each other. It was a really wonderful moment.”
Parental Bliss
The couple are now the proud parents of a blended family of four kids: a set of twins (Grace and Sophia), and a younger daughter, Amelia (born in 2017). “She’s such a bright girl. She’s already started talking and expressing her opinions. It’s been really wonderful to have her around,” Pattinson said in 2018. “Bella calls her the fifth kid. She’s always been quite a family person. She’s very close to her siblings, so having a sister and two brothers has made a big difference. We talk about family a lot.”
Pattinson’s father, Tim, who passed away in 2016, was a photographer and filmmaker, while his mother, Kate, was an actress who appeared in the 1981 TV movie Alice, which was based on the Lewis Carroll character. The actor was named after his paternal grandparents, Robert and Elizabeth Pattinson.
The day after their wedding back in 2013, the newlyweds shared their first dance with hundreds of their guests who had gathered outside their hotel in Venice, where they were staying for the wedding festivities. “I remember thinking that this was for the best. It was such a magical moment. Everyone was there, it was such a beautiful sunset,” Pattinson said. “We kind of wanted to make sure everyone was a part of this. It was kind of a private moment for us.”
One of the wedding highlights was Bella’s reaction to receiving her wedding bouquet. As the wedding party made their way towards the altar for the ceremony, the bride looked back over her shoulder and saw hundreds of roses behind her. “I remember thinking that this was such a touching moment. And then, when the music began, it just continued,” she said. “I felt like everyone was a part of it. We had all these musicians and they were playing songs that we loved, so it was quite emotional.”
The following year, the couple returned to Venice for a second wedding ceremony that lasted for hours as they celebrated their union and the birth of their children. “There were four churches that we chose and we each had an organist playing for us. One of the pastors came and gave a sermon about the evils of materialism, which I thought was quite apt,” Pattinson recalled. “It was a beautiful ceremony.”
Happy Years
The pair, who welcomed their first child at 26 years old and became parents at a young age, have been happily married for over a decade. In 2015, Bella gave birth to their twin daughters, Grace and Sophia. In April 2017, the family went on a summer vacation to Italy with the actor’s parents. “It was such a special moment. She’s got this incredible glow. I didn’t cry but there were a few tears,” Pattinson said of his newborn daughters. “They’re such tiny little people. Grace is already sitting up and exploring and Sophia is just behind her. It’s amazing to see them develop so quickly.”
Over the years, the family have gotten quite a bit of media attention for their glamorous appearances at various award ceremonies and royal weddings. After the birth of their second daughter, the twins dressed up as ballerinas for Halloween and later posed for a wedding photography commission that was featured on the cover of Wonderland magazine. In 2018, the family were the first to appear on the cover of a British Vogue special edition, celebrating the fashion magazine’s 100th anniversary.
A year earlier, Pattinson had starred in the superhero movie, X-Men: Apocalypse, which served as a comeback role after 2012’s Gone Girl. However, it wasn’t until last year that the actor’s career really took off, with him earning rave reviews for his portrayal of poet John Keats in the film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. He will next be seen in the action series, The Game Changers, as well as the third installment in the Fantastic Beasts series, which is set to premiere in October.