While promoting her upcoming film America’s Sweethearts, which coincidentally tells the story of a high-profile Hollywood couple in the process of breaking up, Oscar winner Julia Roberts has spoken out for the first time about her fizzled romance with Law And Order heart-throb Benjamin Bratt.
“OK, here’s the thing: I love Benjamin,” Julia told US chat show host David Letterman on Tuesday night. “He’s a good man, he’s a fine man. He is, to the exultation of the female single population, not my man anymore.”
And while insiders say Benjamin initiated the split – “She didn’t see it coming,” said one friend of the Erin Brockovich star – Julia pooh-poohed any talk of a bitter parting. “It’s come to a kind and tenderhearted end,” said the actress.
Julia insisted there was no third party involved, despite rumours that her Ocean’s Eleven co-star and confirmed bachelor George Clooney played a role. “He’s a kind and lovely man, though not my boyfriend,” Julia said of the former ER hunk. “I’m single.”
But, the show’s cheeky bandleader Paul Shaffer wasn’t prepared to let the conversation end there. Encouraged by cheers from the studio audience, he interjected: “So Julia, are you getting laid these days?”. Julia’s jaw dropped and the Pretty Woman star blurted out, “I’m shocked”. Even Dave seemed caught off guard, yelling out, “Are you nuts?”.
“Why don’t you just put me on a spit, roll me round and roast me up?” Julia joked, before finally admitting the answer was “No”.
“I’m single and I’ve been practising being that in front of the mirror, saying: ‘Hi, I’m Julia and I’m single.’ It doesn’t make me a bad person.”
America’s Sweethearts opens in cinemas across the US on July 20 before hitting UK screens in early autumn.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
