Julia Roberts And Her Teenage Heartthrob Liam Neeson Had A Sizeable Age Gap

Sometimes celebrities can keep their dating histories private and sometimes they've dated too many celebrities for that to be possible. The latter is kind of the case for Julia Roberts, who's had such a long and successful career that her past boyfriends are pretty well-known. She's starred in genre-defining films like "Pretty Woman" and "My Best Friend's Wedding," and she's bringing the 90s flair of rom-coms back with her recent film "Ticket to Paradise" with longtime friend George Clooney. Roberts is known for her infectious laughter and charm in film and in interviews; it's a no-brainer that she was able to snag any man she wanted to.

Her first high-profile relationship was with none other than Liam Neeson. And while age gaps aren't a new thing in the Hollywood dating pool, the two of them did have a pretty wide one. While Roberts and her current husband, Danny Moder, are only a year apart (Roberts is the older one), age didn't hold her back from finding love with Neeson at the time. 

Julia Roberts has been a working actor since 1987. When she was 19, Roberts filmed her second-ever film, "Satisfaction." While filming, she fell for a much older man: 35-year-old Liam Neeson. In spite of the 16-year age gap between them, the two reportedly got serious and moved in together in Venice, California.

An episode of "The Kitty Kelley Files" — a series highlighting New York Times best-selling author Kitty Kelley's knowledge of celebrities — focused on Roberts and gave a bit of biased commentary on why Roberts would date and fall for Neeson. In the episode, Kelley said Roberts was "someone who never really had a father figure that she could look up to and admire." The episode also reported that the two moved in together just two weeks after meeting on-set. Kelley also gave a reported timeframe of their relationship — 1988 (the year "Satisfaction" came out) until 1990. "Liam Neeson was great with Julia Roberts," the writer said. "She was new to the business, he was accomplished, he was successful — but this would start a pattern with other leading men." After her relationship with Neeson ended, Roberts went on to date co-stars such as Dylan McDermott, Kiefer Sutherland, and Matthew Perry.

As stated above, Julia Roberts didn't stop dating people on her movie sets after Liam Neeson. In fact, she met her second (and current) husband, Danny Moder, on the set of "The Mexican" in 2000. Roberts starred in the film alongside Brad Pitt, while Moder worked as a cameraman. Moder's now a successful cinematographer and camera operator. He's worked on several films like "Mona Lisa Smile" (also starring Roberts) and "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," and the Netflix series "Dead to Me."

When they met, Roberts was dating actor Benjamin Bratt and Moder was married to celebrity makeup artist Vera Steimberg. In 2002, after they were both single and figured their lives out separately, they started dating. They got married in July 2002 and are now more than two decades into their marriage.

The secret to staying together is not just communication for Roberts and Moder, but constant contact regardless of where she's filming. Roberts told "CBS Sunday Morning" in 2022 that this includes handwritten notes, which they've "always done," and is a very sweet way to stay in touch. While she sees acting as a "dream come true," it's not her only one. "The life that I have built with my husband [and] the life that we've built with our children, that's the best stuff," she said. "To come home at the end of the day, triumphantly, to them."