Paul Rudd and Wife Julie Yaeger’s Love Story Began Right After ‘Clueless’
Paul Rudd and his wife, Julie Yaeger, have been together since Rudd’s breakout hit Clueless launched him to stardom—and his career has only continued to grow since. The actor is a big name star with his own leading role in the MCU as Ant-Man. When they first met, it was Yaeger’s job as a publicist to navigate Rudd through the business side of life, but they quickly realized they were compatible in so many more ways.
The couple has now been together for almost three decades and welcomed two children. Here’s everything to know about Paul Rudd’s wife, Julie Yaeger.
Who is Julie Yaeger?
Like her husband, Yaeger works in the entertainment industry but on a different side of it. She began her work in Hollywood as a publicist in the ’90s, but eventually went on to write screenplays and produce films. She wrote the movie Fun Mom Dinner, which was released at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017. Rudd has a cameo in the movie and served as executive producer.
They’ve also collaborated on a business, taking over ownership of a popular store in Rhinebeck, New York, called Samuel’s Sweet Shop after the previous owner passed away. They co-own the sweet shop with their married friends Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton, who are known for their roles on The Walking Dead and One Tree Hill.
How did they meet?
Yaeger met Rudd through her work as a publicist. Rudd’s success with the movie Clueless made him realize he needed a bigger team. They met at a publicist’s office in New York where Yaeger was on staff and went out to lunch.
“She was the first person I met in New York,” he told Marie Claire UK in 2018. “We started talking and there was a maturity with her—she had experienced some tragedy in her life, I had too, and the impression I got was, ‘Wow, this is a woman. This isn’t a girl.’”
How long have they been together?
The couple had a small private marriage ceremony in 2003. In 2011, Rudd told ELLE that his romantic life isn’t “going to sell a lot of tabloids.”
“My wife and I have been together for 16 years,” he said. “My parents were married my whole life until my father passed away a few years ago.”
That would mean they started dating around 1995 and have now been together almost 30 years.
Do they have any children?
The couple welcomed their son, Jack Sullivan, in 2006 and their daughter, Darby, in 2010. Rudd talks frequently about being a parent and how his kids don’t seem too interested in their dad’s fame or his movies in general. He told Marie Claire UK, “Oh, I’m still the embarrassing dad. My daughter is eight and thinks I’m the bee’s knees. My son is 13 and doesn’t even want me going to his school. I make jokes to a series of eye rolls."
In 2023, Rudd shared that he didn’t even really explain his job to them until relatively recently. The actor said in an interview with Willie Geist of Sunday TODAY, “When my kids were very young—I’m not gonna sit my kids down when they’re 3 and say, ‘You know, I’ve got some DVDs to show you.’ I didn’t really explain what I did."
That changed when his son was “about 4 or 5 and went to a movie theater to see a movie with his friends.
“We were all going, and there was a movie poster that I was on that was in the lobby,” Rudd explained. “So they all just thought that I worked at the movie theater, which I thought was very cute.”
He added, “And then, a few years later, I think when he was 15, he finally put it all together. I never corrected him...‘I work at the AMC Loews.’”
Despite their alleged disinterest, they did take a sweet family picture with him in 2015, when Rudd received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
What else have they shared about their relationship?
Rudd has collaborated frequently with director Judd Apatow, and his movies This Is 40 and Knocked Up allegedly feature scenes inspired by both the creatives’ actual relationships with their wives. Apatow is married to actress Leslie Mann, who also stars in the films. In a 2012 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Rudd and Apatow shared that they would ask their wives about “pet peeves” and other annoyances to build scenes.
“We’ll have the ‘What is annoying you about each other?’ conversation, and a lot of that makes its way into the movie,” Rudd said.
He got more specific with the Jewish Journal, detailing a scene that made it into Knocked Up.
“When Judd was writing that movie, my wife once said, ‘I’m so sick of looking at your back,’ because I was just on the computer all day, checking my fantasy football scores.”
In 2021, Rudd spoke about his home life again. He told People, “When I think about myself, I think of myself as a husband and a father, like I’m that. I just hang out with my family when I’m not working. That’s what I kind of like the most."
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