- Elizabeth Gilbert was born on July 18, 1969 in Waterbury, Connecticut, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for Eat Pray Love (2010), City of Girls and Live and Let Die (2015). She has been married to Jose Nunes since January 2007. She was previously married to Michael Cooper.
- SpousesJose Nunes(January 2007 - present) (separated)Michael Cooper(1994 - 2002) (divorced)
- In July 2016, Elizabeth Gilbert announced the end of her marriage to José Nunes (the man called "Felipe" in her book "Eat, Pray, Love" and its movie adaptation). Then, in September 2016, Gilbert further revealed (in a Facebook post) that the reason for that marriage's breakup was that she had fallen in love with her best friend of 15 years, Rayya Elias -something Gilbert only realized after Elias was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic and liver cancers. About Elias, Gilbert wrote: "She's my best friend, yes, but it's always been bigger than that. She's my role model, my traveling companion, my most reliable source of light, my fortitude, my most trusted confidante. In short, she is my PERSON....something happened to my heart and mind in the days and weeks following Rayya's diagnosis. Death-or the prospect of death-has a way of clearing away everything that is not real, and in that space of stark and utter realness, I was faced with this truth: I do not merely love Rayya; I am in love with Rayya. And I have no more time for denying that truth. The thought of someday sitting in a hospital room with her, holding her hand and watching her slide away, without ever having let her (or myself!) know the extent of my true feelings for her...well, that thought was unthinkable. Here is the thing about truth: Once you see it, you cannot un-see it. So that truth, once it came to my heart's attention, could not be ignored....For those of you who are doing the math here, and who are wondering if this situation is why my marriage came to an end this spring, the simple answer is yes. ... So. Here is where we stand now: Rayya and I are together. I love her, and she loves me. I'm walking through this cancer journey with her, not only as her friend, but as her partner. I am exactly where I need to be-the only place I can be.". Elias died on January 4, 2018 aged 57.
- Frenchtown, New Jersey
- Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from New York University, 1991.
- Separated from her second husband of 9 years Jose Nunes.
- She was nominated for the 2024 New Jersey Hall of Fame in the Arts & Letters category.
- On Frenchtown, New Jersey: I love Frenchtown. I believe in this town. I think it's a remarkable place. And I definitely have been trying to lure people here who I feel like would get it or get something out of it.
- [on considering spiritual ideas] I think I'll be exploring those ideas forever. I've spent my entire life chasing wonder, and that word to me is synonymous with spirituality. I don't know what else there is to talk about.
- There is absolutely no ethical argument in defense of eating animals, and I eat them because I like to, you know? I know it's wrong, but I like hamburger because I like it. Also, sainthood can be extremely irritating.
- I have trouble with orthodoxy in any form. I feel, having studied the 19th century evolutionary debate, a newfound sympathy for the pain that this discovery brought to people who - prior to Darwin - would have happily called themselves men of science and men of God. We now have a world full of scientists who have no faith and the faithful who have no reason, and that's a great loss for all of us.
- I have a great deal of sympathy for any cockamamie theory that tries to find meaning in randomness.
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