It’s been years since Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson called it quits, but honestly, people still talk about them like the breakup happened yesterday. It was one of those rare Hollywood pairings that felt... real? They weren't just two pretty people on a red carpet. They were the couple you’d see wandering through the East Village looking slightly disheveled and totally in love.
Then, after a decade, it just stopped.
If you followed them back in the day, the split felt like a glitch in the Matrix. Ten years is an eternity in celebrity time. It’s like thirty years for us regular folks. But looking back now, with the benefit of hindsight and a few tell-all interviews, the cracks were there long before the official reps put out those "we remain friends" statements.
The Date That Almost Never Was
Most people think they were a match made in heaven from the jump. Nope. Their first date was a literal disaster.
Diane has joked before that she actually wanted to slap him. Joshua took her to a restaurant that was—get this—completely overgrown with flowers. It sounds romantic, right? It wasn't. She had a massive allergic reaction. She was sneezing, her eyes were watering, and Josh just kept talking.
He thought he was being charming. She thought she was dying.
Somehow, he convinced her to go on a second date. Maybe it was the Dawson’s Creek charm, or maybe she just felt bad that he’d put on a clean shirt for the first one. Either way, it sparked a ten-year journey that took them from Paris to Vancouver and eventually to a shared life in New York.
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Why Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson Never Got Married
This was always the big question. Every time they did an interview, some reporter would poke at the marriage thing.
They were remarkably consistent about it, though. Joshua famously told Us Weekly that neither of them was religious and they didn't feel the need to have a piece of paper to prove they were committed. They were children of divorce. They saw marriage as a choice, not a requirement.
"I don't feel any more or less committed to Diane for not having stood in front of a priest and had a giant party." - Joshua Jackson
That kind of honesty was refreshing. It also made their eventual split feel more like a divorce than a standard breakup. When you own houses together in multiple countries and share a life for a decade, a breakup is a logistical nightmare.
The Sky of It All and the Norman Reedus Factor
We have to talk about the movie Sky. This is where things get messy.
In 2015, Diane filmed this indie flick with Norman Reedus. Joshua was actually in the movie too, which makes the whole timeline feel a bit awkward. Around December 2015, rumors started flying. People claimed they saw Diane and Norman getting way too close in an East Village bar while Joshua was away filming a documentary in the Philippines.
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The couple tried to push through. They were seen together for months after those rumors surfaced. But Diane later admitted to Vulture that the breakup was "a long time coming."
She said they had actually split months before the public knew. By the time they announced it in July 2016, she felt "liberated." She didn't have to worry about the relationship failing anymore because it had already failed. She could finally just... breathe.
Where Are They Now? (2026 Update)
Life looks wildly different for both of them now.
Diane Kruger found her "happily ever after" (or whatever the Hollywood version of that is) with Norman Reedus. They’ve been together since late 2016, got engaged in 2021, and have a daughter named Nova. She seems settled in a way she never quite was before.
Joshua Jackson has had a bit more of a rollercoaster. He married Jodie Turner-Smith in 2019 and they had a daughter, Juno. Everyone thought he’d finally found "the one." But Jodie filed for divorce in late 2023. As of May 2025, they finally settled that divorce, and it wasn't exactly a walk in the park. There was a lot of back-and-forth over child support and school choices for their daughter.
It's kinda wild to think about.
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Jackson is currently navigating the single life again in his late 40s. He’s been linked to Lupita Nyong’o, but he’s keeping things a lot more private these days. Can you blame him?
The Legacy of a Ten-Year Romance
So, why does the Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson era still matter?
Because they represented a specific time in pop culture where a couple could be "unconventional" and still be the gold standard. They didn't do the "Instagram official" thing every five minutes. They just lived.
If you're looking for a takeaway from their decade together, it's probably this:
- A "bad" start isn't a death sentence. If she had slapped him on that first date, we never would have had ten years of iconic red carpet looks.
- Marriage isn't the only metric of success. Ten years is a successful relationship, even if it didn't end in a "forever."
- Intuition matters. If it feels like it’s been "a long time coming," it probably has.
If you’re curious about how Joshua Jackson is handling his most recent chapter, you might want to look into the specifics of his 2025 divorce settlement with Jodie Turner-Smith. It’s a masterclass in how modern co-parenting works (and sometimes doesn't) when millions of dollars and global acting schedules are involved.