Halle Berry opened up about being celibate for years following her three high-profile divorces.
“I was solo and celibate for four years,” Berry, 59, who started dating boyfriend Van Hunt in 2020, told The Times in a profile published on Friday, January 30. “I had to really sit myself down and be alone and grow and reflect and realize my value.”
Berry recalled thinking she might not find The One. “I had decided if the right person doesn’t come, I will be alone. And that’s OK,” she noted. “I’m enough by myself. I’ve got my children. I have my career. That’s more than enough. I have an embarrassment of riches.”
Berry was previously married to baseball player David Justice from 1993 to 1997 before moving on with Eric Benét. Berry and Benét, 59, were married for four years before their split in 2004. The actress then found love with Gabriel Aubry, with whom she shares daughter Nahla, 17. Her third marriage was to Olivier Martinez, which lasted from 2013 to 2016. The former couple share 12-year-old son Maceo.
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“I have two children who are beautiful souls and I feel great about that,” Berry explained. “The relationships with their dads were not meant to be. But those kids were meant to be.”
Berry admitted she “would not have been ready” for Hunt, 55, before going through her divorces. “I had to go through fire and burn to get to the point of appreciating a person like him,” she said. “I was a moth to a flame. I no longer am that person.”
Despite the couple’s strong connection, Berry recalled having intimacy issues with Hunt due to painful sex.
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“Sex started to feel like I had razor blades in my vagina,” she recalled. “I finally had this amazing man in my life and that part started to feel right for me. And then I had this problem and I thought, ‘There’s something terribly, terribly wrong here.’”
Berry eventually went to a doctor — thinking she had a sexually transmitted disease — and was diagnosed with perimenopause. “So I said [to the doctor], ‘If it’s not herpes, then what is it?’ He said he didn’t know,” she continued. “And that’s when I went head-first down this path of self-discovery and reconnaissance for myself.”
While Berry was transparent about her personal life, she also insisted there’s more to her than just looks. “I die a thousand deaths. It becomes a hard compliment to accept,” she explained. “Year after year after year. When you’re striving to be more. I’ve worked really hard as an actor, and still to be reduced to a beautiful face it’s like, ‘Hey, wait a minute.’ Come on.”
She continued: “I say, ‘Thank you.’ And I smile. Because you’re an asshole if you say anything else.”
