When two stars who are as adored as Ryan Gosling and Sandra Bullock get together, the world takes notice. And perhaps their near-universal popularity is why their 16 year age gap didn’t even feel like that big a deal when they started dating back in 2001. But, ultimately they turned out to be in it for a good time, not a long time — so what happened along the way?
How it Began
Ah, another good old-fashioned workplace romance. In this case, the workplace was the set of 2001 thriller Murder By Numbers. Bullock, now 61, was 37 and Gosling, now 44, was just 21, but the pair hit it off — first, as friends but, by the time it came to promoting the movie on the red carpet, they were an established couple, going subtly public at Cannes Film Festival in May 2002.
How Long it Lasted
Despite the age gap, these two stayed together for a solid two years, quietly splitting in 2003. Along the way, they were pretty private when off-duty, never publicly confirming their relationship, but making it clear they were in one by holding hands at events and not being able to disguise the looks of love in their eyes (as two of the prettiest stars in Hollywood, who can blame them?!)
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How it Ended
While the former couple have never opened up about exactly what led to their disappointing demise, Gosling named the culprit years later, in an interview with The Times in 2011. “Show business is the bad guy,” he said. “When both people are in show business, it’s too much show business. It takes all of the light, so nothing else can grow.”
What They Said About Each Other
Early in 2003, Bullock gave a cute but coy interview to Cosmopolitan, where she admitted that she and Gosling weren’t “just friends.” She said: “If you were to add the word ‘just,’ it would probably be a bit of a lie. So, I’d say we’re friends.”
She elaborated that she’s never shied from an on-set romance. “It’s the greatest dating service on the planet,” she admitted. “You take two people who normally can’t leave the house, who don’t know if people are with them for the right reasons, and they get paired up because they have chemistry, and they happen to fall in love.”
She added: “I have a hard time being just friends. My feeling is, if you’re both single and you’re not hurting anyone, do it, have a great time. But if you’re committed, walk away. You have to have a really good moral backbone. Don’t have conversations, just say, ‘I’m really attracted to you, and it’s not easy for me, but I’m not going to have contact with you.’ Movie sets are breeding grounds for that kind of stuff, so you just have to have a good set of rules going into it.”
She also revealed that Gosling was a grounding influence in her life who had encouraged her “to chill” more. “I live my life at a manic pace, and he’s taught me to disregard all that isn’t important,” she said. “He’s like a little Buddha.”
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What They Say Now
It’s clear that these two didn’t end on bad terms. In 2011, not long before he got together with his now-wife, Eva Mendes, Gosling told The Times that Bullock and his other A-list ex Rachel McAdams were “two of the greatest girlfriends of all time.” He added: “I haven’t met anybody who could top them.”
In fact, the relationship seemingly gave Gosling a taste for older actresses: Mendes also has seven years on him, with the couple sharing two daughters. Bullock is also a mom of two and is currently single after tragically losing her partner Bryan Randall in 2023.
Key Relationship Takeaways
They might not have made it past the two year mark, but it sounds like both huge stars learned a lot from their relatively short time together. And refreshingly, it feels like Gosling and Bullock flipped that age gap on its head, with Gosling actually taking on the more mature “Buddha” role in the relationship versus Bullock’s more playful energy. As she admitted in her Cosmo interview, “I haven’t always been easy to be in a relationship with, and I’ve been the problem most of the time, I’ll admit that!”
