Sean Penn has opened up about his divorce from his third wife, Australian actress Leila George, who is 31 years his junior. The couple had been in a relationship since 2016 and married in 2020 in what he dubbed a “Covid wedding” because it was officiated over Zoom.
Leila filed for divorce just over one year later and it has recently been finalised.
In a new interview, Sean admitted that he still loves his ex-partner and explained what caused the breakdown of their relationship.
He declared: “There’s a woman who I’m so in love with, Leila George, who I only see on a day-to-day basis now, because I f***ed up the marriage.”
Sean adds that throughout their five-year relationship and one year of marriage, he was “very neglectful”.
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The Academy Award winner stated that he never cheated on Leila, but admitted that he allowed himself to “think that [his] place in so many other things was so important”.
Sean added to Hollywood Authentic: “That included my place in being totally depressed and driven to alcohol and Ambien at 11 o’clock in the morning, by watching the news, by watching the Trump era, by watching it and just despairing.”
Now, the Mystic River star says he is making a conscious effort to make his family a priority.
He says that although he doesn’t know what the future holds for him and Leila romantically, he hails her as his “best friend in the world” and the “most influential and inspiring” person in his life.
He happily said: “We did a Covid wedding, by that I mean it was a county commissioner on Zoom, we were at the house, my two children and her brother, and we did it that way.”
Sean shares one son, Hopper, 28, and a daughter, Dylan, 30, with his second wife Robin Wright, 55.
Prior to this, he was married to Madonna, 63, from 1985 until 1989 after meeting on the set of her Material Girl music video.
Despite their divorce, Sean has confessed he will hold a special place in his heart for the singer.
In an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2018, he was asked whether he prefers Madonna or Britney Spears.
Sean responded: “Ah, I love my first wife very much. There’s no [comparison]… you don’t compare those things.”
The actor has also been romantically linked to Charlize Theron, Scarlett Johansson and singer Jewel Kilcher.