Martha Stewart reveals why she broke it off with Anthony Hopkins

By Toyin Owoseje, CNN

Martha Stewart has revealed she ended her romance with Anthony Hopkins because she couldn’t separate the actor from his most notorious film role.

Appearing on “The Ellen Show” on Thursday, the 80-year-old lifestyle guru and TV personality said she had to break up with the Welsh Oscar-winner, 84, after recalling his chilling performance in the 1991 horror thriller “The Silence of the Lambs.”

In the film, Hopkins portrayed Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a convicted serial killer who ate his victims. While his critically acclaimed performance earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1992, it cost him his relationship with Stewart.

During a game of “Two Truths and a Lie” called, “Where’s the Lie, Martha?” one of the clues read: “I dated Sir Anthony Hopkins but broke up with him because I couldn’t stop thinking of him as Hannibal Lecter.”

Host Ellen DeGeneres categorized it as a “lie,” but Stewart revealed that it was indeed true.

Stewart, a gourmet chef who forged a career on the opposite end of the cuisine spectrum to Hopkin’s alter ego, admitted she was too worried about life imitating art to continue dating the screen star.

“I have a big, scary house in Maine that’s way by itself on 100 acres in the forest, and I couldn’t even imagine taking Anthony Hopkins there,” the “Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party” host told DeGeneres. “I couldn’t — all I could think of was him eating, you know…”

When DeGeneres asked Stewart if she ended things with the actor “because of that,” she replied: “Yeah.”

While it’s unclear when Stewart and the Hollywood star dated, it’s likely that it was before Hopkins married his third wife, Stella Arroyave, in 2003.

Stewart, who divorced her ex-husband Andrew Stewart in 1990 after almost three decades of marriage, previously spoke about her fleeting romance with Hopkins during a 2014 appearance on “The Meredith Vieira Show,” saying they “went out to dinner” a couple of times but insisted “a girl should kiss and never tell.”

However, losing dates was not enough reason for Hopkins to say goodbye to the notorious Lecter. He reprised the sinister role in Ridley Scott’s “Hannibal” in 2001 and Brett Ratner’s 2002 prequel “Red Dragon.”

The-CNN-Wire
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