Michelle Williams has welcomed her second child with husband Thomas Kail, but the award-winning actress is already a parent to 14-year-old Matilda Rose, whom she shares with the late Heath Ledger.
As Michelle becomes a mother for the second time, we take a look back at her ill-fated romance with the Dark Knight actor, who died in 2008.
Heath and Michelle met on the set of the film Brokeback Mountain in 2004.
Their chemistry was undeniable, with their co-star Jake Gyllenhaal confessing: “I remember being in rehearsal, and the two of them had googly eyes with each other.”
“Our initial meeting, the circumstances of how we first met, were cosmic or something,” Michelle herself admitted to GQ in 2012.
“Yeah, a lot of things happened at once. It’s a bit like, we had a lot of things to do because we didn’t have a lot of time, or something.”
Not long afterwards, the couple welcomed their daughter Matilda Rose who was born in October 2005 in New York. To this day, Matilda’s godparents are Jake and Michelle’s best friend and former Dawson’s Creek co-star Busy Phillips.
“When Michelle is working, I’m the manny, and when I’m working, she’s the nanny,” Heath proudly said in 2006, adding that his family is “everything” to him and “the most important thing” he does.
“Before, I felt like I was floating through life, like a ghost; I may not have even existed.”
However not long after, things changed. The couple grew more distant and Heath began to party hard and often use cocaine.
A friend of the couple revealed: “In the end, there were too many differences. She kind of turned her head to those at the beginning, but when Matilda was born was really when she started to reevaluate things.”
“I don’t think they fell out of love; it was probably tough love,” another friend said.
Michelle’s best friend Busy opened up about the couple’s 2007 split in her 2018 memoir This Will Only Hurt a Little and admitted that whilst she felt sad for the pair, she felt like “it wasn’t the end of the story for them”.
“They were so young and that baby was the light of both of their lives. They were just working all the time and it was complicated.”
“S*** is always complicated. Especially when you’re twenty-eight. And movie stars. With a baby,” she added.
Heath died in New York City after taking a fatal mix of prescription drugs aged 28 – just five months after he and Michelle split.
Though Matilda was just two years old when her father died, Michelle has admitted she sees Heath in her, admitting in 2009, “Every time I really miss him and wonder where he’s gone, I just look at her.”
Michelle has also made sure that she keeps the memory of Matilda’s late father alive.
“I always say to Matilda, ‘Your dad loved me before anybody thought I was talented, or pretty, or had nice clothes,’” she told Vanity Fair in 2018.
“When you’re a single parent, and that element of provider and protection is missing, it’s scary,” she said of raising Matilda after Heath’s death.
Following Heath’s death, Michelle has since been romantically linked to filmmaker Spike Jonze, actor Jason Segel, financier Andrew Youmans and was even briefly married to musician Phil Elverum.
In December 2019, it was announced that Michelle was not only engaged to director Thomas Kail, but that they were also expecting their first child together.
“They’re very happy and thrilled to be bringing a baby into the world,” a source told Us Weekly in January 2020.
“They would like to be married by the time that happens.”
The couple reportedly tied the knot in secret in March this year and welcomed their child privately in June.
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