Inside Anna Faris' Relationship With Michael Barrett

Whew, after Anna Faris and Chris Pratt let the universe know that they split up in 2017, the dam holding back the Major Life Changes River sure did burst open. In the few years that followed, we've heard Faris express that she is not totally sure about marriage anymore; we learned Pratt remarried Katherine Schwarzenegger; and we found out that Faris is in a relationship with cinematographer Michael Barrett. Oh, and it looks like Faris may be up for getting married again after all, because now she and Barrett are engaged.

Compared to her extremely high-profile relationship with Pratt, Anna Faris' relationship with Michael Barrett is a pretty private one. Sure, they have been photographed by paparazzi, and no, they do not exactly try to hide their PDA, but she seems set on keeping things more under wraps this time around. (For starters, as far as we can tell, he is nowhere to be found on her Instagram account. And if he has an Instagram account, we were unable to find it.) As she said when she went on SiriusXM Hits 1 in 2018, "I think that it's a lesson learned a little bit in terms of keeping relationships a little more private, potentially, even though I don't want to— I pride myself in being a pretty open person. But, I don't know, it's tough when you're under the scrutiny."

So what do we know about this relatively private Hollywood relationship? Here's what we've got.

Anna Faris and Michael Barrett crossed paths while filming Overboard in 2017, but as TMZ noted, they apparently did not strike up a romance during production. Barrett is the cinematographer on the 2018 remake of the Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell comedy classic of the same name, and what do you know? Faris is the star of that very movie. In May 2017, Faris tweeted a report about Overboard, which had just begun filming in Vancouver, and wrote, "This is why I've been so quiet on twitter-I'm being loud on set in Vancouver." Little did she know (or any of us know, for that matter) that she just so happened to be being loud on set in Vancouver with her future fiancé. 

Faris and Barrett have both worked in Hollywood for a while. Faris's big breakthrough happened when she starred in the first Scary Movie film, which then spawned multiple sequels. Her other credits include Take Me Home Tonight, Mom, and The House Bunny. Barrett has acted as the director of photography on stuff like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, both Ted movies, and A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas. And then, the stars aligned and brought them together for Overboard.

We know Anna Faris and Michael Barrett met during the making of Overboard, but as far as the official start date of their courtship goes? We don't have the answer to that! But we do know that entertainment news outlets first caught wind of Faris and Barrett's budding relationship about a month after Faris and Chris Pratt announced their separation. As TMZ reported, Faris and Barrett were photographed hanging out at a carnival together in early September 2017. And then, according to TMZ's sources, the pair looked "very couple-y" while dining at Neptune's Net in Malibu shortly after their carnival outing.

The following month, E! reported Faris and Barrett went to Modo Mio, a restaurant in Pacific Palisades, Calif. twice in two days. According to an E! source who witnessed the duo's second trip to Modo Mio, the meal "seemed romantic in the way they were looking at one another and how they were laughing at the table." Shortly after that, TMZ reported Faris and Barrett were out and about in Seattle, adding that a source said there was some PDA during their "romantic lunch date." And then, E! reported that they jetted off to Venice, Italy together that November. A day at a carnival, good meals, and a trip to Europe? Not a bad way to kick off a relationship. 

When Anna Faris and her second husband, Chris Pratt, shared that they decided to split up, cries of "love is dead!" rang throughout the Twitterverse, for another beloved "relationship goals" couple was no more. On Aug. 6, 2017, they announced their decision with a joint statement they shared on social media. The post read, "We tried hard for a long time, and we're really disappointed." They also noted that they "still love each other and will always cherish our time together." According to TMZ, Pratt officially filed divorce papers in December 2017, and things were finalized the following October.

As it turns out, love is not dead after all. Like Faris, Pratt ended up in another serious relationship following the split. Just under a year after he and Faris went public with their separation, Pratt was spotted with Katherine Schwarzenegger. Cut to January 13, 2019 when Pratt announced on Instagram that he and Schwarzenegger were engaged. Six months later, they tied the knot. In April 2020, People reported they are expecting a child. Like a phoenix soaring out of a pile of ashes made up of burnt legal documents, love rises again. 

Anna Faris and Chris Pratt's son, Jack Pratt (pictured above), did not have to wait too long before he met Michael Barrett. Remember that trip to a Los Angeles carnival that Anna and Michael took back in September 2017? Well, it looks like Jack was there, too. A source told E! that Anna and Michael "made the day all about him and were watching him play carnival games and cheering him on." According to a 2019 E! report, an insider said Jack was introduced to Michael "very early on." The source continued, "[Anna] wanted to be honest with him and have Michael be a part of Jack's life."

A few months after the carnival, Jack apparently met Michael's son. According to the Daily Mail, Anna and Michael introduced their children to each other in December 2017 when the foursome went out for a meal together.

Anna's new relationship apparently got her son's seal of approval. A source told In Touch in November 2018 that "Jack really likes Michael," adding, "As her son is her number one... [she] is thrilled [he] is comfortable and happy." In March of that same year, Us Weekly reported an insider said, "Michael is great with him and that's all Anna cares about."

As of this writing, Anna Faris and Michael Barrett are affianced, but for a little while there, it sounded like Faris wasn't sure she'd ever walk down the aisle again. When Laura Wasser asked Faris if she would eventually get married to Barrett on an April 2019 episode of the Divorce Sucks! podcast, the House Bunny actor would not say yes or no. She explained, "I believe in love and monogamy, and I believe in the commitment with a relationship. But I do struggle — having gone through it a couple of times now, Laura — with the idea of our legal system." She also said that she struggles with marriage "on kind of a feminist level, actually."

Before she got hitched to Chris Pratt, Faris was married to actor Ben Indra. Faris pulled the plug on her relationship with Indra while she was filming Take Me Home Tonight with Pratt, a decision she details in her 2017 book, Unqualified. She shares that her marriage to Indra was on the rocks for some time, but the divorce wheels were not in motion until her co-star Topher Grace asked, "What the f**k are you doing with that guy?" Oh, and there's the whole thing where she was super into Pratt. She writes that she waited until after her split from Indra before she got physical with Pratt, but that "didn't make me a hero." She continues, "After all, I wanted to. Desperately."

On a 2018 episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Anna Faris said, "I believe in partnership, I believe in companionship. I just don't know if I believe in the ceremony of a wedding necessarily." And on the aforementioned two-part episode of Divorce Sucks!, she said, "I wouldn't even want to have another [wedding]." She went on to say that she's "not crazy about weddings." As she shared on the Divorce Sucks! podcast, her first wedding was a ceremony at the Beverly Hills courthouse. Her second was, as her rep told People in 2009, "a small ceremony in Bali."

When she went on The Late Late Show with James Corden in February 2020, she asked James Corden if he would be down to audition for the role of wedding officiant. And then, she considered the possibility of officiating her own ceremony (she is an ordained minister, after all). Are we to assume all of this means she changed her mind and is actually open to the idea of having another wedding after all? Who knows! Only time will tell. 

At the very least, we know she is open to the idea of kidding around about who she would consider for the wedding officiant job. So, uh, that's... something?

Anna Faris' buddies reportedly are very here for her relationship with Michael Barrett. In 2018, an insider told Us Weekly that "All of her friends love him." The source continued, "He's so down-to-earth, stable and obsessed with Anna." Sure seems like he is good in their book. 

Evidently, the guy makes a good first impression. When asked about her Mom co-star's relationship when it was just getting started back in late 2017, Allison Janney told E! that she was "so happy for her." She continued, "I met him once, he seems really lovely. I don't know him, but I'm happy for her. If she's happy, I'm happy." Fast-forward to January 2020 when Janney told Us Weekly that she celebrated Faris and Barrett's engagement with them "a long time ago." 

Wait, does that mean that Janney was present for the moment Barrett popped the question? We'll circle back to that in a few. 

According to a source speaking with Entertainment Tonight in 2018, Anna Faris and Chris Pratt have "always maintained a respectful relationship after breaking up." The anonymous friend of the exes added that they "support each other in their new relationships and want one another to be happy." Another source quoted in a 2019 E! report about Pratt and Faris' split claimed that the exes "are on good terms now in terms of each of their significant others and have no problems with Jack hanging out with either." 

All of this brings us to Halloween 2018. As TMZ shared, Faris and Michael Barrett spent that All Hallow's Eve with Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger. The foursome all went trick-or-treating together with Faris and Pratt's son. A source told E! that the four grown-ups "all seemed like very good friends and had a lot of laughs and good times." Well, that sounds sweeter than a five-pound bag of candy corn. 

After news of Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger's engagement broke, Anna Faris' response was nothing short of glowing. On a January 2019 episode of Anna Faris Is Unqualified, Faris shared that Pratt reached out after he proposed to Schwarzenegger, and she was thrilled by the news. She said, "I'm so happy for them. I knew that it was gonna happen and I love her and I love him and I'm just so happy that they found each other." Faris also mentioned that she jokingly reminded Pratt that she is an ordained minister, and then went on to call Pratt and Schwarzenegger "f***ing amazing people." 

It sounds like the feeling is mutual. When she launched her podcast, The Dog That Changed Me, in 2019, Schwarzenegger told Us Weekly that she looks up to the host of the hit podcast Unqualified. Regarding Faris, she said, "Learning from her is another huge gift. I have such great people in my life that I'm able to learn from in all different areas of life and, and she's definitely somebody that I look up to in the podcast world." Schwarzenegger also said that she does "admire all the work that she's done."

In November 2019, TMZ reported Anna Faris was seen wearing a big ol' canary yellow diamond ring on her left ring finger. And with that, the engagement speculation began. Aside from casually thanking a photographer for congratulating her on her engagement shortly after the ring photos surfaced (via E!), Faris kept pretty quiet initially about whether or not she and Michael Barrett were set to wed. 

The following January, Allison Janney put any and all doubt to rest when she confirmed to Us Weekly that her Mom co-star did in fact get engaged. She said, "I know she's been engaged for a long time. I kept it very quiet, I'll have you know! So, I celebrated with them a long time ago." Faris went about sharing the news in a most casual way. Janney recalled to Us Weekly that she just so happened to notice the fresh new ring on Faris's hand one day at work, so she asked about it. Janney explained, "I think she was waiting for everyone to notice. 'Oh, that's it,' and then ... yeah, it was fun." 

And then, there was the picture Faris posted on Instagram when Jason Biggs was a guest on her podcast in February 2020. In the photo, her diamond is front and center, daring us to scream "CONGRATULATIONS" from the mountaintops. 

The cat was more or less out of the bag the moment Anna Faris went out in public with that enormous yellow stone on the fourth finger of her left hand (and when Allison Janney spilled some details) (oh, and when she posted that photo on Instagram where she and her ring are posing with Jason Biggs), but things felt extra official when she straight up acknowledged her engagement to Michael Barrett on a late-night talk show. On the Feb. 11, 2020 episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden, host James Corden gawked at Faris' mammoth ring, offered up his congratulations, and she thanked him. And then, as previously noted, she told him she would "love it if you auditioned" for the part of wedding officiant.

Following her The Late Late Show with James Corden appearance, a source told Hollywood Life that Faris waited a while before talking about her engagement publicly, because she wanted to make sure "everyone in her life knew her good fortune before the world did." Another source went on to say that she "can't wait to get married as she wants to show people what true love is and if they can in any way learn from her love, even better!" 

Will the day they get married be the day Faris finally posts a photo of Barrett on Instagram? Can't wait to find out.