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Ben Stiller is opening up about why he felt like he was “failing” following his separation from his wife.
In his new documentary, “Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost,” the 59-year-old “Zoolander” star explores his parents’ decades-long partnership, comparing it to his own marriage with Christine Taylor.
Ben and Taylor married in 2000 and announced their separation in May 2017 after 17 years together.
“When we separated, my feeling was like ‘Oh, I’m failing at this’ and look at my parents. They have this incredible 50-plus year marriage and I can’t live up to that,” he tells Taylor in the documentary, per People.
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Stiller felt like a failure when he and Taylor separated, comparing his relationship to his parents’ marriage. (Stefanie Keenan/VF25/WireImage for Vanity Fair; NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images )
The documentary follows the relationship between his father, Jerry Stiller, and his mother, Anne Meara, who performed together as the iconic comedy duo, Stiller and Meara. Together they made over 30 appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and later had their own short-lived variety show, “The Stiller and Meara Show.”
Ben and Taylor also worked together a number of times during their relationship. They first met while filming the pilot of a TV show called “Heat Vision and Jack,” and went on to star alongside each other in “Zoolander” and “Dodgeball.” Looking back, Ben recalled wondering “what kind of toll” his parents’ working relationship put on their marriage and remembered not wanting to be like his parents when he first began dating Taylor.
“When we separated, my feeling was like ‘Oh, I’m failing at this’ and look at my parents. They have this incredible 50-plus year marriage and I can’t live up to that.”
“I do feel like there was history and I think a lot of it was your experience of what that ultimately meant for a relationship that it could put extra strain when you’re eating, sleeping, breathing each other in that way,” Taylor told Ben in the documentary. “I also felt like there was a fear from you for me of what that would look like to the outside world. I mean it was very loaded.”
The “Tropic Thunder” star previously spoke about his separation from Taylor during a January 2025 interview with The New York Times, in which he explained, “In my mind, I never didn’t want us to be together.”
Ben Stiller never thought his separation from Taylor would be permanent. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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Their separation lasted “three or four years,” and the two were in contact throughout that time. They later moved into the same house during the COVID-19 pandemic with their two children, Ella, 23, and Quinlin, 20.
“I don’t know where Christine was, you’d have to ask her, but COVID put us all together in the same house,” he explained. “It was almost a year of living in the same house before we were actually together. But I’m so grateful for it, and I think not that many people do come back together when they separate.”
Taylor also discussed their separation during a March 2023 appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show,” explaining that during their separation the two “got to know who we are.”
She added that they got engaged six months after meeting each other “were married within a year, then had [daughter Ella] the next year.”
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Taylor said she and Ben had grown in different directions and needed time to figure things out. (Kennedy Pollard/Getty Images for Don Julio Tequila)
“Family was always a priority, but I think Ben and I both started to grow in different directions,” Taylor said. “And when we made the decision to separate, it was not something we wanted to talk publicly about or took lightly.”
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“I think we have these growth spurts, even as adults,” she later added. “And we needed time to figure that out.”
“Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost,” is set to premiere on Apple TV + on Oct. 24.