Revisiting What Billy Crudup, Claire Danes and Mary-Louise Parker Said About Their Love Triangle

Billy Crudup, Claire Danes and Mary-Louise Parker were once wrapped up in a messy love triangle before finding their respective happily ever afters.

Back in 1996, Crudup and Parker fell in love after both starred in the Broadway play Bus Stop. Parker was seven months pregnant with the pair’s son, William, in 2003 when Crudup left her to date Danes, whom he met while filming the movie Stage Beauty. Parker gave birth in January 2004, while Crudup and Danes made their relationship public that same year.

Crudup has never publicly opened up about the details behind his and Parker’s unexpected split. “I just want to make an argument for not including anything about the Mary-Louise Parker situation,” he wrote to New York Times reporter Jesse Green via email in an October 2004 profile for the outlet. “I just want to make an argument for not including anything about the Mary-Louise Parker situation,” he said. “First and foremost it is personal, painful and involves an infant, and does not deserve to be exploited to sate the appetites of circulation counters and bored readers.”

He continued, “I have never indulged our society’s misguided notion that my personal life is relevant to my work, so any reporting surrounding that is necessarily hearsay, speculation or fantasy. Each published report is based only on the trade of suffering.”

Crudup and Parker have seemingly become cordial coparents in the years since, as Crudup exclusively told Us Weekly in January 2020 that one of his son’s student films “starred me and his mom.” The actor gushed, “He gets all the best talent right there.”

Crudup and Danes ultimately called it quits in 2007. Danes has gone on to welcome three kids with her husband, Hugh Dancy, while Crudup tied the knot with Naomi Watts in 2023. Parker, meanwhile, adopted her daughter, Ash, in 2007.

Scroll down to see what Crudup, Danes and Parker have said about their relationship drama over the years:

2009

Danes briefly addressed her and Crudup’s split in an interview with Blackbook. “That was a choice I made to fall in love. It’s unpleasant to be cast in such an unflattering role [in the tabloids], but I just had to remain steadfast,” she said, per Vanity Fair. “I was living with the same kind of integrity that I had always lived with.”

Danes went on to note that “as a public person, you’re serving a certain function, and you’re a canvas for people to project their own hopes and fears onto, so you do have to perform a kind of mental trick and distance yourself from it.” She continued, “But there are times of weakness in which you wonder if what they wrote is relevant to you or representative of you.”

August 2007

“It’s weird to me the way that people receive it,” Parker told New York Magazine of her drama with Crudup and Danes. “Not so much that they speculate on it, but that they feel they have the right to comment on it.”

October 2015

Danes called the criticism she faced for her romance with Crudup a “scary thing” during an interview with Howard Stern. “That was really hard,” she said, adding that she “didn’t know how to not” worry about the implications it would have on her career.

“I just was in love with him and needed to explore that. And I was 24. I didn’t quite know what those consequences might be,” she shared. “But it’s OK. I went through it. … We’re friendly. We’re friends.”

November 2015

Though Parker didn’t mention Crudup by name in her memoir, Dear Mr. You, she recalled an instance where she broke down in a cab around the time of their breakup. Parker wrote that a cab told her, “I don’t want you anymore,” after she yelled at him for getting lost. She replied, “No one does. … My life is worse than yours in this moment. … I am alone. Look, see? I am pregnant and alone. It hurts to even breathe. … I’m trying to get through it but I’m by myself every night and every morning and no one, nothing helps. I’m sorry I yelled. I can’t get my shoes on anymore. Please, I know I am awful, it’s been made clear but look at me please. Look at me.”

Parker was asked about the taxi story during an interview with Savannah Guthrie on Today. “I think it’s less about whatever was going on in my life, which is private to me and will always remain so,” she stated. “This was a complete stranger who met me at a very low moment. And had I been in touch with a higher self and been forgiving of him, it would’ve been heroic. But I was so attached to my own unhappiness that I was unable to sort of rise above feeling persecuted, and it just created this dynamic with this perfect stranger.”

She continued, “It was almost like he held up a mirror in my face. I’m not the hero of that story by any means, and he sort of haunted me because I didn’t consider him or his life. And I’ve subsequently gone on to really consider what was going on with him that day ‘cause all I could think of was what was going on with myself.”

June 2023

Parker sent well-wishes to Crudup after he and Watts said “I do” during a New York City courthouse ceremony. “I wish them well,” she told The Guardian at the time. “And absolutely, I honestly of course wish them every happiness because that’s my son’s father. So I’m happy for them. I’m happy they found each other.”

April 2025

Crudup and Danes reignited interest into their romantic past after they reunited at the NYU Tisch Gala 2025 in NYC. In an Instagram video shared by People from inside the event, the exes shared a hug and chatted after Crudup walked over to Danes’ table to catch up.