Michelle Williams Struggled to Recover From Losing Heath Ledger, but Eventually Overcame the Pain and Found New Love

Michelle Williams has had an incredibly successful career. The actress knows how to choose interesting projects, she’s been nominated for the Oscar 4 times, won an Emmy, and won two Golden Globe awards. But she has had other struggles in her personal life, particularly while raising her first daughter alone. Williams says that she had to walk a long path, which ultimately led to becoming happy. She’s finally found a family and is now expecting a third child.

Michelle and Heath met on a movie set.

Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams met on the set of Brokeback Mountain, when Heath was 25 and Michelle was 24. Other actors remember that they were charmed by each other. At rehearsals, they couldn’t take their eyes off of each other. They didn’t take a lot of time to think about it and started to live with each other very soon after. In 2005, they had a daughter named Matilda.

3 years later, they decided to break up.

The young actors sincerely adored each other. Michelle would constantly talk about Heath’s talent, and Ledger would talk about her beauty and her acting skills. He expressed that he was happy about how good of a mother Michelle was, and how much he loved his girlfriend and his little daughter.

But Heath and Michelle worked quite a lot, which impacted their relationship. For example, just 3 weeks after the birth of their daughter, they had to take part in advertising campaigns for their work. The problems were building up, and in 2007, the couple announced that they were breaking up.

Their story could have been completely different.

Their acquaintances remember Heath’s and Michelle’s affection for each other as being very honest. They were very young, and their careers were quickly developing. Michelle’s best friend, Busy Philipps, is sure that their story could have had a completely different ending, because they adored their daughter and loved each other. But time was against both of them, and in 2008, Heath Ledger tragically passed away.

Michelle couldn’t process her loss for a long time.

At first, Michelle just couldn’t believe that Heath was gone. She remembers that the time was very hard for her. It seemed to her that Ledger was still around and could walk into the door or from around the corner at any moment. But she had to take care of her 2-year-old daughter and started to drift away from the memories of Ledger.

Her friends helped her deal with the grief.

Michelle was able to go through the tough times with the help of her friends and family. Busy and her mom moved into her house and helped her. Matilda also missed her dad. Even though the parents had broken up, Ledger had still been very involved in her life.

A friend of the family, Jeremy Strong, also put in a lot of time and effort to make the girl laugh and support her.

A new love didn’t heal her.

Michelle didn’t want to stay on her own, and she tried to find a partner and build a good relationship. But all her romances would end quickly. The actress thought that love could help get rid of the pain and grief, but, in many cases, it turned out to be a bad idea and made the situation worse.

Williams didn’t think she’d be single for such a long time, because she’s a person that loves taking care of others. But as she said, “I’m also happy with myself and just because I might have a desire to be with someone...that won’t lead me to marry the wrong person.”

At first, she and Matilda were just surviving.

Michelle always said that Matilda’s upbringing was the most important thing for her. She was ready to deal with all the challenges of being a single parent, but the only thing that would constantly bother her was that the girl didn’t have a father. The actress once said, “I’m a believer in not fighting circumstances in pretty much all senses but one. I would be able to go totally down that line of thinking were it not for Matilda not having her dad. That’s just something that won’t ever be right.”

At times, the actress thought that motherhood was about cooking and keeping a very fixed schedule, and sometimes, she thought motherhood was a super-happy thing.

But Matilda and her were moving forward. Once, Michelle saw her smiling daughter running to her friends, and started crying. Their small family would finally be happy again.

Michelle wanted the girl to grow like a normal child.

Williams quickly realized that she didn’t want her daughter to always be in the spotlight. During Matilda’s first years, journalists would literally follow them everywhere, so the actress decided to move into a quiet town. Michelle said, “If you feel like people are watching you, it’s impossible to have an authentic experience of being alive. I don’t know how to live like that, and I don’t know how to give a life to my child like that.”

So, the actress doesn’t have any social media, and tries to keep Mathilda as far from the press as possible. And Williams is incredibly grateful to Kristen Bell for organizing the No Kids Policy campaign, asking photographers not to take photos of stars’ kids. Thanks to Kristen, many children have been able to walk around the streets freely, not worried about cameras.

For a long time, Michelle rejected roles that would have required her to move. She wanted Matilda to have a calm and stable childhood. Traveling and movie set life would not have contributed to that.

Because of Michelle’s choice, Matilda is able to study and stick to a schedule, and her mom doesn’t have to run around and feel exhausted all the time. Williams really enjoys her parenting duties, because she thinks that her most important role in life is being a mom.

The actress doesn’t forget to tell Matilda about her father.

Michelle doesn’t want Matilda to grow up knowing nothing about her dad. She constantly reminds her daughter, “Your dad loved me before anybody thought I was talented, or pretty, or had nice clothes.” But she also doesn’t hide the truth about Ledger. When Matilda became older, she told her about her Ledger’s difficult last year of his life.

Heath’s family is part of Matilda’s life.

Heath Ledger’s relatives honestly adore Michelle, thinking that she’s a great mom. The actor’s sister, Kate, says that Williams’ decision to raise Matilda far from the city fuss was great. Year by year, Matilda reminds people of her father more and more: she moves like him, she holds her pencil like he did, and jumps on the skateboard like he would.

Every time Kate has a chance, she tells her niece stories from her childhood with Heath. After a while, Matilda shared that she wanted to move to Perth, Australia, for a short time, to meet the entire Ledger family. Michelle supported this idea, knowing how important it is for her daughter.

Williams keeps her private life in secret.

Michelle carefully keeps her private life secret and doesn’t like to share any details with the press. Lately, she’s been talking about complex issues more freely in her interviews, but she still chooses the time when she’s ready to share news about her family herself.

So, Williams was able to keep her romance with director Kyle Thomas private for a while. They met when they were working on the series Fosse/Verdon. In December 2019, Michelle and Thomas shocked everyone about the news of their engagement and pregnancy.

Michelle is going to have her 3rd child soon.

Michelle and Thomas got married secretly in March 2020, and 3 months later, they had a son. But the public only learned that the couple named him Hart two years later. The actress said that she finally found her happiness, and nothing makes her as happy as motherhood.

Michelle said, “There’s nothing that makes you committed to a better world than raising a great kid. It’s the ultimate creative act.” And recently, it has become known that Michelle and Kyle are expecting another child.

Do you know anyone that has been waiting for happiness for a long time and finally found it?