WHO’S DOING WHO? Love & STUFF
ANNA & BILL: IS IT LOVE, ACTUALLY? COME ON YOU TWO, STOP TEASING US
After years of being at the heart of romance rumours, Anna Wintour and Bill Nighy seemed to finally confirm they were an item last week. Vogue’s editor-in-chief and the British actor rocked up to the Met Gala arm-inarm and happily posed for photographs together, causing a meltdown at the hottest new septuagenarian couple in town.
Anna, 73 – who has presided over the Met Gala since 1995 – and Bill, also 73, have been close friends for years and are understood to have first crossed paths in the early 2000s on the London theatre scene. They have been publicly pictured together on numerous occasions, ranging from a theatre outing in 2018, to intimate dinners in Italy in 2021, and screenings of Bill’s film Living last year. Anna and Bill have rarely commented upon relationship rumours, although in his usual dry manner, the latter did once remark, “There are a lot of rumours about me… and probably about Anna.”
While the internet obsessed over the pair’s display at the Met Gala – with one fan calling them a “power couple” – a spokesperson for Bill later released a statement saying, “Bill and Anna have simply been friends for two decades. They are not in a relationship.” Gutted.
Bill – who won the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA gong in 2004 for his portrayal of Billy Mack in Love Actually – has always been coy about romance rumours with Anna, once responding to a question about her with, “I’d love to answer that. But if I did, I’d be involving the readers in something very close to gossip, and I know they’d never forgive me for that.” Fashion icon Anna has been married twice before. She has a son, Charles, 38, and a daughter, and Bee, 35, with first husband David Shaffer, who she was married to from 1984 to 1999. She wed entrepreneur Shelby Bryan in 2004, but they reportedly parted ways in 2020. Meanwhile, Bill has a daughter Mary, 38, with ex-partner Diana Quirk, who he broke up with 15 years ago.
We don’t know about you, but we’ve got a feeling that love, actually, is all around… ■
‘There are a lot of rumours’