When Stanley Tucci wanted to break up with Felicity Blunt over 21-year age gap; actor explains

Actor Stanley Tucci has revealed that he once tried to break up with his then-girlfriend and now-wife Felicity Blunt. He said he was ‘afraid’ of their future together because of their 21-year age gap.

Tucci was speaking on the BBC Radio 4 podcast Desert Island Discs, when he spoke about falling in love with Felicity Blunt, who is actor Emily Blunt’s sister.

Stanley got together with Felicity after losing his first wife, actor Kate Spath-Tucci, to cancer. He revealed on the podcast that he was "afraid to get into a relationship and I kept trying to break it off" because "I am 21 years older than she is".


"I didn’t want to feel old for the rest of my life," he said, adding quickly, "But I knew this was an incredibly special person".

The 62-year-old actor first met the 21 years younger Felicity Blunt at the premiere of his film The Devil Wears Prada in 2006. His wife was present with him. "She (Felicity) and Kate talked a lot that night," Tucci revealed.

Kate and Stanley had been married for 14 years when she died of stage 4 breast cancer in 2009. Post the mourning period, Stanley met Felicity again. The occasion was her sister Emily Blunt's wedding to actor-director John Krasinski in 2012.

Stanley Tucci and Felicity Blunt got married in 2012. The couple has two children together, son Matteo Oliver, 8, and daughter Emilia Giovanna, 5.

Tucci is all praise at how "Felicity has been so incredible taking on a widower and three children whose mother died".

"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," he emphasized.

Tucci felt guilty over Kate’s death of cancer, and felt "helpless".

"I know you felt you couldn’t be with her in the end, which must have brought some complicated emotions to the surface for you,” podcast host Lauren Laverne asked Stanley Tucci.

To which he said, "Yeah, very… I was afraid it would affect me so greatly that I wouldn’t be able to go on and take care of the kids. That it would overwhelm me, so I had to step away."

He confessed, "Other people were there with her (Kate), my stepdaughter and friends, and that was a good thing. I did what I had to do to help the kids get along. But you still feel guilty about it, you feel sad," he added.

FAQs

Q1:What happened to Stanley Tucci’s wife?
Stanley Tucci’s first wife, late actor Kate Spath-Tucci died from breast cancer in 2009. In 2012, Tucci married literary agent Felicity Blunt, who is the sister of actor Emily Blunt.

Q2:Who was Stanley Tucci in The Devil Wears Prada?
Stanley Tucci plays Nigel in The Devil Wears Prada, a film based on a book of the same name.