Their greatest test? Jerry O’Connell feared for his marriage to Rebecca Romijn as the couple faced quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’ve been married for 13 years, and the quarantine has not broken us,” the actor, 46, exclusively told Us Weekly on Friday, July 31, while discussing his partnership with Bob Evans Farms. “I’m proud to say a big shout-out to Bob for hooking us up with all their amazing mac and cheese, which is keeping our family together.”
O’Connell had his doubts in the beginning. “I have to say — I’m going to get in trouble for this — when quarantine [began] … I was like, ‘I’m not sure how, not only is our family going to make it, but can my marriage handle this?’” he recalled. “And dare I say it’s been kind of fun. We might just make it.”
The Secret: Dare to Dream star quipped that he did not realize he would be in such close quarters with Romijn, 47. “I didn’t know I was going to be spending this much time with my wife,” he quipped. “I’d thought I’d be going to work every day. I thought I’d be commuting. I thought maybe, you know, on the weekends maybe a few meals at home — Bob Evans from the refrigerated section. But it’s been crazy.”
He added: “Like, no one knows anything. No one’s done this before. And it’s not like we can go to our parents or elders and be like, ‘Hey, Mom and Dad, what was it like when you went through quarantine?’”
Despite O’Connell’s light-hearted nature about the situation, he had his eye on the actress long before they made things official in July 2007. He told Us he did not “want to freak my wife out” but admitted that he kept a photo of her in his wallet and “looked at it and studied it 10 years before I met her.”
“Now look at us,” he said. “We have been married for 13 years. We go on RV trips, fighting, eating Bob Evans mac and cheese with the whole family. It’s a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing.”
O’Connell — who shares 11-year-old twin daughters Charlie and Dolly with Romijn — and Alfonso Ribeiro have partnered with Bob Evans Farms for the Love at First Bite campaign, creating fun recipes using the brand’s dinner sides.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
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