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Freddie Prinze Jr. Reveals The Secret To His Long Relationship w/ Sarah Michelle Gellar (Exclusive)
For the much accepted among us, copper is considered to beryllium the classical 22nd day present. So since Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. are hitting that peculiar milestone Sept. 1, they mightiness see shipping disconnected a portion of dense metallic to their bully friend.
Because had their mutual pal not missed her formation to the westbound seashore connected that fateful January 2000 day, the I Know What You Did Last Summer costars whitethorn person conscionable carried connected indefinitely as buddies who person the occasional affable meal.
Instead, with their meal companion a no-show, "we decided to inactive conscionable and drawback up," Gellar shared connected Instagram.
And astatine upscale sushi eatery Asanebo, Gellar did thing that near Prinze floored. "A batch of girls backmost past successful Hollywood—as acold arsenic the actresses—they didn't eat. They ate salad," the onetime aspiring cook recalled successful a 2016 Facebook Live interview. "Sarah came to meal with me, and we sat down. She ate everything, including a crab that they fto locomotion crossed the counter, past killed portion it was live successful immoderate lipid and said, 'It's popcorn, try.'"
As she popped the crustacean successful her mouth, everything benignant of clicked: "I was like, 'Yo, my miss is legit.'"
The spot inactive stands arsenic Prinze's favourite ("They got a five-star Michelin rating, and its Zagat usher nutrient reappraisal is 1 word. It conscionable says 'Perfection,'" he told E! News), conscionable arsenic Gellar remains "his" girl, much than 2 decades and 2 kids later.
An really eternity successful the Hollywood relationship landscape, it's adjacent much awesome erstwhile you consider Gellar and Prinze were just 22 and 23 the nighttime their relationship abruptly became thing more; 25 and 26 erstwhile they wed in Mexico two-and-a-half years later.
Celebrity couples who sail past that seven-year people with nary an itch thin to get quizzed ad nauseam about the secrets to their success. So the actors person attempted to explain their lightening successful a vessel a clip oregon two. They enactment successful the work, arsenic she told Us Weekly, stressing that "to person a palmy relationship, whether it's marriage, whether it's friendship, whether it's business, you person to enactment the time, if you privation to spot the results."
And, yet, "we cognize erstwhile idiosyncratic needs a small abstraction and we cognize erstwhile idiosyncratic needs a hug and erstwhile idiosyncratic needs a laugh," she explained to E! News successful February 2021, detailing Prinze's applicable joke that made her laughter until she cried.
But mostly, she and the Punky Brewster actor, 48, conscionable like each other, an wholly underrated origin erstwhile it comes to long-lasting unions. "I deliberation it's large to beryllium successful love," Gellar, 47, told Steve Harvey, "but it's besides bully to similar each different and similar spending clip together."
That portion of their narration clicked aboriginal on, the brace connecting connected the I Know What You Did Last Summer acceptable some three years earlier that unexpected archetypal date.
Though they shared fewer scenes successful the North Carolina-set instant fearfulness classic, they spent a large woody of clip together. A autochthonal New Yorker, Gellar "didn't person a driver's license," Prinze explained to Us Weekly of the then-20-year-old. Which was a occupation erstwhile shooting took spot successful the coastal municipality of Southport, 30 miles from the nearest large metropolis of Wilmington.
"It was an hr thrust conscionable to get to the gym," helium continued. "So, I started driving her, and that's erstwhile her and I became friends. And we conscionable would speech astir beingness and worldly similar that, and we had wholly antithetic philosophies connected conscionable astir everything. 'Cause she was a calved and raised New Yorker and I was a calved and raised L.A. kid, and we conscionable looked astatine everything similar nighttime and day."
By the clip they wrapped, "I conscionable wanted to beryllium friends with her due to the fact that I thought she was excessively skinny and I wanted to navigator for her. Because that's what my household does," the future Back to the Kitchen author said of Gellar, past successful the archetypal play of her fame-making, butt-kicking gig arsenic the titular Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "And so, we started this play barbecue happening astatine her house, and maine and my cousins would travel implicit and navigator nutrient for her and her friends. And past we'd marque definite everybody ate, and that was benignant of however our relationship began."
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In the years that followed, they'd get unneurotic arsenic often arsenic anyone mightiness spot a past coworker, Gellar telling People, "We were friends for a precise agelong time. We've had galore dinners before." (And a acceptable sojourn oregon two, Gellar making the briefest of non-verbal cameos in 1999's She's All That because she was there hanging retired with Prinze. "I deliberation you truly understood that my quality did not privation pepper," she joked connected Instagram of the cafeteria moment.)
But determination was thing astir that nighttime astatine that spot successful January 2000, with Gellar's adventurous palate impressing confessed Japanophile Prinze. "We were conscionable 2 radical astatine meal catching up," she continued of their unexpected date night. "We had a agelong car thrust and a agelong dinner, and things conscionable happened."
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A relationship already solidified, they some knew beauteous speedy that this could beryllium it, their transportation extending acold deeper than their aboriginal 2000s popular civilization dominance and the information that they're some really, truly ridiculously good-looking. (Though, that doesn't hurt, Gellar joking to E! News successful 2013, "He's a good-looking man. I'm not gonna complain!")
Being capable to fast-forward past the getting-to-know-you spot was "one of the reasons I deliberation our narration has ever been truthful good," Prinze explained to E! News successful 2017. "We were conscionable friends for a bully 2 years earlier we ever went connected a date. She knew what benignant of feline I was. She knew what my morals were, what my priorities were and vice versa. We already benignant of knew each the faults successful the different person."
Perhaps much importantly, they knew each other's good qualities, the ones that pointed to this being a particularly auspicious match.
"Sarah and I are ever precise nonstop and blunt. That's however we've rolled for 20-plus years," Prinze told Parade.com. "If I bash thing that'll marque her huffy she's like, 'Hey antheral that sucks, why'd you bash that?' Then I'm like, 'Oh god, I'm sorry,' and I don't bash it again."
He overmuch prefers her marque of candor implicit immoderate benignant of passive-aggressive behavior. "She'll fto you cognize however she feels for amended oregon worse," Prinze continued. "That's wherefore Sarah and I are inactive together, origin determination are not galore girls similar her retired there."
Because from the moment they crossed that conscionable friends boundary, "I didn't spell connected dates with different girls nor did I adjacent privation to prosecute dates with different girls," helium told People. And contempt each having declared they didn't judge successful marriage, "one day, I conscionable knew we're going to get joined and that I was going to propose. I didn't cognize erstwhile oregon how."
Fortunately, erstwhile helium got down connected 1 genu successful April 2001, helium continued, "she was connected the aforesaid leafage and my instincts were correct."
A hurricane threatened their Sept. 1, 2002 vows adjacent Puerto Vallarta, giving credence to that full rain-on-your-wedding-day-is-good-luck adage. But aft a rehearsal dinner that had guests specified arsenic Wilmer Valderrama, Dulé Hill and Gellar's bestie Shannen Doherty partying astatine the excavation until 3 a.m., planners simply moved the Adam Shankman-officiated ceremony indoors and the amusement went on.
Back successful Los Angeles, their careers surged up arsenic well, Prinze capping disconnected his teen flick reign playing the Fred to Gellar's Daphne successful 2 unrecorded enactment Scooby Doo films earlier pivoting onto television.
And having staked her last vampire successful 2003, the erstwhile All My Children atrocious miss booked a slew of films, including 2004's The Grudge, a thriller that took her to Japan wherever she picked up what Prinze called "my favourite acquisition ever." (A Katana leaf from a maestro swordsmith, "She had to get existent paperwork from the government.")
But their biggest presents came seven years into their marriage, girl Charlotte arriving successful September 2009; lad Rocky 3 years later.
Prinze's own dad having died by termination erstwhile helium was 10 months old, "for maine being a father, not having a dad, it makes it my No. 1 priority," helium stressed to E! News in 2017. "So erstwhile my girl was born, that was beauteous overmuch it for me. I became a full-time father. It's not a job. It's what I emotion to do."
A season-long stint connected 24 wrapped, helium became precise choosy about his adjacent projects. "We combat implicit who gets to enactment home," Gellar, herself raised by a azygous mother, admitted to Us Weekly successful 2012. "You'd deliberation it would beryllium the opposite, that the parents would beryllium like, 'No, I'll spell to work!' but he's like, 'You stayed location for 2 years! It's my turn!'"
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Having returned to work, archetypal connected Ringer, past with Robin Williams successful The Crazy Ones, Gellar arranged her hours truthful that she was capable to beryllium location for wake-ups oregon bedtimes. And successful 2015 she launched the passionateness task that's afforded her a spot much flexibility, her low-sugar, integrated baking institution Foodstirs the sweetest of occurrence stories.
Back connected screens with past year's Wolf Pack, a task she besides enforcement produced, Gellar knows she's had much than her stock of wins. "I person accomplished much successful my vocation than I deliberation I could person ever anticipated," she told W successful 2019. "I've been a merchandise of not 1 but aggregate shows that resonate, that radical inactive watch, that radical inactive emotion and speech about. So, for me, it's each gravy."
Though Gellar's arrogant "that I've been capable to usage storytelling to marque a quality successful people's lives," her kids bring her the astir gratification, hands down. They're the radical successful her life who can appreciate that she virtually slayed on television, but inactive attraction much that she helps them cook cookies and execute chill hairdos. "I effort to abstracted myself arsenic overmuch arsenic I can," she told W. "I ever say, there's Sarah Michelle Gellar and there's Sarah Prinze. And they're 2 antithetic people."
Sarah Prinze shares homework and cleaning duties with her hubby who conscionable truthful happens to besides beryllium an aboriginal aughts icon. She worries astir however her kids volition fare astatine sleepovers ("I wanted to walk the nighttime downstairs successful their impermanent room, but I benignant of got kicked out," she joked to Momtastic successful 2015) and tries to champion the geniuses that crook up to vie each weeknight connected Jeopardy.
"We enactment arsenic a team, truthful immoderate constituent I get, she gets, immoderate constituent she gets, I get," Prinze explained to Parade. "The past 1 that we watched, we got the archetypal six answers successful a row. We were like, 'are you kidding maine close now?! Time for idiosyncratic to beryllium connected Celebrity Jeopardy!' But we didn't get immoderate close for the remainder of the show."
They definite person figured retired the reply to support a matrimony humming on 2 decades in, though.
They're not large connected Valentine's Day ("We don't bash presents, but we'll get immoderate smooches successful determination man," Prinze told Parade), similar "date nights astatine location wherever I'm cooking," said Prinze to fancy outings and they are superior erstwhile it comes to dedicated household time.
"When I had kids, I benignant of reevaluated my life," Gellar reflected to POPSUGAR successful 2017. "You recognize our nine is specified a technologically savvy and precocious community, but what are those moments wherever you truly connect? Where you enactment the phones down and you truly person that one-on-one moment. I had this epiphany and I realized everything successful my beingness was astir food. Whether that's having meal astatine your location successful the room oregon you're hanging retired with friends, those are wherever the memories happen."
So they marque them count, committing to regular household dinners with fewer distractions. "Some radical accidental our expectations are a small higher than most," she admitted to Us Weekly in February 2020. "We have no phones astatine the table. We sit, we each person meal together."
After all, they cognize conscionable however important 1 seemingly insignificant repast tin crook retired to be.
"We ended up being the cleanable balance," Prinze told E! News of their friends-to-forever journey. "There was a coagulated instauration built, and that's astir apt the main crushed wherefore we've ever been chill and groovy."
This communicative was primitively published connected Monday, March 8, 2021 astatine 12 a.m. PT.
English (US) ·