How Georgina Chapman Found Love Again With Adrien Brody
Originally appeared on E! Online
Bouncing back after a breakup can be tricky. After a bad breakup? It can feel nearly impossible.
And Georgina Chapman knows from bad breakups. Regardless of whether she should have been aware of then-husband Harvey Weinstein's insidious actions she was, by her own admission, shocked when the accusations of sexual harassment, assault and rape began to roll in from dozens of women in October 2017.
"There was a part of me that was terribly naive—clearly, so naive," she told Vogue in 2018. "I have moments of rage, I have moments of confusion, I have moments of disbelief!"
However, by the time Weinstein was found guilty of rape in the third degree and criminal sexual act in the first degree, two of the five counts he faced during his New York City trial, in February 2020, she only felt sadness. (The New York Court of Appeals announced last April that the conviction was overturned, ordering a new trial.)
"She's still heart broken and grieving for all the victims," a source told E! News at the time. "The pain of that will never go away."
Time may not be enough to heal her particular set of wounds, but perhaps love can help?
First linked to Oscar winner Adrien Brody in late 2019, the 48-year-old British fashion designer, co-founder of the celeb-beloved Marchesa brand, has been by the actor's side as he scoops up trophy after trophy for his turn as a post-World War II refugee in the movie The Brutalist.
"To my beautiful and amazing partner Georgina, your generosity of spirit, your own resilience, your immense creativity are a daily reminder of how to be," the actor, 51, said as he collected his Golden Globe Jan. 5. "I would not be standing here before you if it wasn't for you."
He also called out his "beautiful girlfriend" on stage at the Critics Choice Awards Feb. tk and at the BAFTA Film Awards tk days later.
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Time may not be enough to heal her particular set of wounds, but perhaps love can help?
First linked to Oscar winner Adrien Brody in late 2019, the 48-year-old British fashion designer, co-founder of the celeb-beloved Marchesa brand, has been by the actor's side as he collects trophy after trophy for his turn as a post-World War II refugee in last year's epic period drama The Brutalist.
"To my beautiful and amazing partner Georgina, your generosity of spirit, your own resilience, your immense creativity are a daily reminder of how to be," the actor, 51, said as he accepted his Golden Globe Jan. 5. "I would not be standing here before you if it wasn't for you."
He also called out his "beautiful girlfriend" on stage at the Critics Choice Awards Feb. 7 and at the BAFTA Film Awards nine days later.
And should the Succession alum find himself thanking the Academy March 2 at the 2025 Oscars, where he's nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role alongside Timothée Chalamet, Colman Domingo, Ralph Fiennes and Sebastian Stan, no doubt his No. 1 fan will be among those cheering him on.
"What an amazing night!" Chapman wrote on Instagram after their Critics Choice date. "Congratulations to my darling Adrien on your well deserved win, I couldn’t be more proud."
More than five years after the couple reconnected at an industry dinner, they seem to have landed on the perfect recipe for romance.
Brody and Chapman share a passion for the careers that have earned him an Oscar (the actor's first win came in 2002 for his work in The Pianist) and her honors from the British Fashion Awards and the CFDA, plus a mutual respect for each other's drive—and even the same April 14 birthday.
"Happy birthday my darling twin," Chapman wrote to her fellow Aries last year, "so happy to share this day with my best friend."
Happier, still, to have someone worthy of her birthday wishes.
In the months following the bombshell revelations about Weinstein, the man she once told Vogue was so "incredibly charming and so charismatic, it sort of draws you in," London-bred Chapman swore off dating. Even appearing in public felt somehow wrong.
"I was so humiliated and so broken . . . that . . . I, I, I . . . didn't think it was respectful to go out," she said in Vogue's June 2018 issue, explaining why she spent the previous five months holed up first in L.A., then with her parents in London and finally New York City. "I thought, Who am I to be parading around with all of this going on? It's still so very, very raw. I was walking up the stairs the other day and I stopped; it was like all the air had been punched out of my lungs."
She had initially resisted speaking to anyone outside a tight-knit circle that includes her longtime pal, actor David Oyelowo and Huma Abedin, the political staffer who endured her own much-dissected public split from former congressman Anthony Weiner.
Though the idea of meeting with a therapist was floated, "I was too shocked. And I somehow felt that I didn't deserve it," she said. "And then I realized: This has happened. I have to own it. I have to move forward."
So she began to come to terms with her guilt, her anger, her utter sadness for what kids India, 14, and Dashiell, 11, might experience. "What are people going to say to them?" she wondered to Vogue. "It's like, they love their dad. They love him."
And through it all she allowed friends to force her out of her West Village townhouse.
It was at one such outing that she reconnected with Brody. As is typical in the insular Hollywood community, the pair had socialized previously, Page Six reported, but together at the same resort—Puerto Rico's Dorado Beach Ritz-Carlton Reserve, for Helena Christensen's swimwear launch in April 2019, the same table even—something clicked.
Soon, Brody—whose 2006 film Hollywoodland was co-produced by Weinstein's former company—found himself among the circle of supporters helping Chapman rebound from her life's lowest point.
In the initial months after Weinstein's scandal came to light, lifelong pal and collaborator Keren Craig stepped in to man the helm at Marchesa headquarters in New York, steadying the brand they'd founded together in 2004 after meeting as students at the Chelsea College of Art and Design.
"Our friendship always comes first, so foremost, I was worried for Georgina," the designer, who has since left the label for a new venture, told Vogue in 2018. "Secondly, we have so many talented, loyal people who work for us, some who've been here for twelve, thirteen years, so my concern was to get to the office and get the collections out, so that people could be paid and pay their rents."
Meanwhile Oyelowo, a friend Chapman made en route to a drama school audition, handled the personal front.
"I kind of found myself in a first-responder capacity," he told Vogue of hosting her at his home. "My wife and I were right there with her two kids, and this catastrophe was unfolding in real time across the globe, literally your worst nightmare in terms of a marriage, in terms of the future of your kids and your business. And none of this was your own doing and yet you are entirely lumped into it."
For him, the hardest part to see "was that she quite rightly took the stance of not going out there and defending herself, because there was just too much white noise and too much bile headed in her general direction. She felt, How dare I raise my head and say, 'Oh, by the way, I'm suffering too?'"
Even more than that, the designer herself told the mag, she didn't want the pity. "I don't want to be viewed as a victim," she said, "because I don't think I am. I am a woman in a s--t situation, but it's not unique."
Years removed from the depths of that scandal, she now finds herself in another not-all-that-unique situation: A woman in love.
By 2022, she and Brody were making the red carpet rounds, attending the Vanity Fair Oscars fete that March and walking the steps up to the Met Gala on that first Monday in May.
They returned to the iconic Met steps last May, shortly after Chapman made her return to Instagram, posting that January for the first time since 2017.
"Date night this time last week," she wrote May 13, showing off her Marchesa 'fit and Brody's icy blonde locks.
Though the pair got dolled up for fashion's biggest night at New York City's JW Marriott Essex House, they're normally at home on their farm in upstate New York where they share the land with "a menagerie" of pets, including a dog, four cats and miniature donkeys, he recently detailed to People.
When he's not on set or performing on stage in Chapman's native London, where he enjoyed a two-month run in The Fear of 13 last fall, he prefers "to either be in the recording studio or the painting studio," he told the mag. "And then go for hikes and spend time with the animals. It’s quite special."
So is the woman who's usually by his side.
He's "very grateful to have a partner with kindness and intelligence and insight," he told People. "That goes a really long way."
As does a healthy dose of perspective.
"You can have the most fortunate life and be a miserable, unhappy person," he noted. "You can have a glimpse of happiness or an encounter that can bring such tremendous joy and inspiration that you can carry through in so many other ways."
"It’s impossible not to have perspective if you’ve witnessed and experienced so much," Brody summed up. "And I’m most grateful for that."
(Originally published April 14, 2020 at 6 a.m. PT)
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