Gwyneth Paltrow & Brad Falchuk’s Relationship Timeline From First Meeting To The Politician

Gwyneth Paltrow is notorious for oversharing (or, as some Goop fans might prefer to say, sharing generously) when it comes to her personal life. Paltrow's relationship with Brad Falchuk, whom she married last September, is no exception.

In a recent interview with The Sunday Times, Paltrow explained that she and Falchuk still maintain separate homes, despite the fact that they’ve now been married for a year and were together for four years before that. 

“All my married friends say that the way we live sounds ideal and we shouldn't change a thing,” the actress and lifestyle guru told The Times, adding that her intimacy teacher, Michaela Boehm, encouraged the unusual living setup as a way for the couple to keep their relationship “fresh.”

So how did Paltrow and her producer husband get to this point, of happily living in separate homes and celebrating their blended families while also maintaining a healthy working relationship? Here, as Netflix’s The Politician (which they also collaborated on) debuts, we take a look back at the couple’s sweet journey to romance, and how their work and personal lives have overlapped throughout their time together.

Falchuk co-created Glee with frequent collaborator Ryan Murphy. At the time, Paltrow was a guest star on four episodes of the second season, as substitute teacher Holly Holiday. Onscreen, her character had a romance with Will Schuester; offscreen, she and Falchuk’s relationship was going from professional to romantic. Earlier that year, Paltrow and longtime husband Chris Martin had announced that they were going their separate ways after 10 years of marriage, famously releasing a statement about their “conscious uncoupling.” Falchuk had split from his wife of nearly 10 years, fellow producer Suzanne Bukinik, one year prior.

The pair kept their new romance under the radar, however, and didn’t really officially go public with it until their mutual friend Robert Downey Jr.’s 50th birthday bash in April 2015. They “seemed very happy together,” an onlooker told People at the time.

With their romance now out in the open, the couple enjoyed spending time together in public, including a whirlwind Italian vacation in July 2015 that included stops in Rome and Positano. There, they took in the sights of the Amalfi coast, took pasta-making classes, and soaked in the sun, per People.

That fall, Paltrow accompanied Falchuk to the L.A premiere of his new show Scream Queens (yet another Murphy collaboration), making their relationship Instagram official by posting a selfie of the pair with the cute caption: “My date and I #screamqueens.”

Rumors of the pair’s engagement started to swirl early on, but it wasn’t until November 2017 that multiple sources confirmed to Us Weekly that the couple was indeed looking toward getting hitched. “They both knew it would happen, but it wasn’t a big thing to them because they were both in long marriages before,” a source told Us at the time. “There wasn’t a rush.”

Paltrow kicked off the new year with a Goop cover story about what else? Their engagement. In a joint statement, Paltrow and Falchuk told fans that they “feel incredibly lucky to have come together at this juncture in our lives when our collective successes and failures can serve as building blocks for a healthy and happy relationship.”

The couple wed in an intimate ceremony at her Hamptons home that included guests like Robert Downey Jr. (of course), Cameron Diaz, Benji Madden, and Steven Spielberg. Noticeably absent was Paltrow’s ex, Chris Martin, though the pair are definitely still on good terms (they co-parent their kids, Apple and Moses, and Martin maintains a room in Paltrow’s current home). Paltrow wore Valentino, and according to a later post to Goop, there was “perfect weather, a superlative dinner, a dance party for the ages, and a dress that defies adjectives.”

To further solidify their very modern family and very okay-ness with the nature of their blended family, Paltrow and Falchuk invited Martin, along with their four kids from previous marriages, along for their holiday honeymoon in the Maldives. “So, my new husband and his children, my children, my ex-husband, our best family friends [all went],” she told Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest on Live With Kelly and Ryan in the new year. “It was a very modern honeymoon.”

The duo worked together once more for the series, on which Falchuk serves as co-creator and director (of a few episodes) and Paltrow stars as Santa Barbara socialite, Georgina Hobart.