While some celebrities swear huge age gaps aren’t a dealbreaker in relationships, Stanley Tucci used to think very differently.
Chatting on Radio 4’s show Desert Island Discs, the actor reveals the 21-year age gap with his wife Felicity Blunt almost stopped them from getting married.
“I kept trying to break it off!, 62-year-old Tucci revealed, adding he didn’t want to “feel old” for the rest of his life.
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Tucci met his now-wife Felicity in 2006 at the premiere of The Devil Wears Prada – her sister is actress Emily Blunt. At the time, he was married to Kate Spath, who died from breast cancer in 2009.
Tucci and Blunt reconnected a year-and-a-half after his wife’s death, at Emily’s wedding to John Krasinski at Lake Como in Italy.
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After losing his wife, Tucci said he was reluctant to commit to someone else.
“I was afraid to get into a relationship and I kept trying to break it off, because I am 21 years older than she is and I didn’t want to feel old for the rest of my life. But I knew this was an incredibly special person.”
“Felicity has been so incredible taking on a widower and three children,” he added. “That’s a huge thing, at a very young age too. If anybody made things better for all of us, it’s her. She’s the one.”
The couple share two children: an eight-year-old son Matteo Oliver, and a five-year-old daughter Emilia Giovanna. Tucci also has three kids he fathered with Kate: twins Isabel and Nicolo, 23, and daughter Camilla, 21.
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The Hunger Games actor was diagnosed with oral cancer in 2018 after doctors found a tumour, which he credits Felicity with helping him survive.
“I lost 35 pounds. I couldn’t eat. I had a feeding tube for six months and everything tasted like you-know-what and smelled like you-know-what,” he said in an interview on the US Today show.
“I was so afraid,” Tucci added. “But Felicity was very insistent. She was incredible. Still is incredible.”
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In March 2022, Tucci said he was cancer-free and “lucky to be alive” after his cancer diagnosis five years earlier. He only revealed he had quietly battled cancer for three years for the first time in 2021.
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