Emmy Rossum only married her first husband after he gave her an ultimatum and didn’t even tell her mother about it until after they split.
Emmy Rossum only married her first husband after he gave her an ultimatum.
The Shameless actress wed producer Justin Siegel in February 2008, but was so convinced it “wasn’t right”, she didn’t even tell anyone they had tied the knot until they went their separate ways.
Speaking on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Emmy said: “I started dating Justin, and he worked at Interscope Records that I was signed to. And we were dating for maybe a couple months. We liked each other.”
But a few months into their romance, Emmy landed a role in Dragonball: Evolution, which would mean filming in Durango, Mexico, for six months, prompting Justin’s ultimatum.
She recalled: “I remember the day that I was going away to make the movie, he said something to me like, ‘I don’t know if the relationship is gonna survive the distance. So maybe we should break up or get married.’
“I literally had a flight that night to Durango, Mexico. At that moment, I thought to myself, ‘Well, I’m just coming off these two really rough heartbreaks.’ Abandonment is my core wound. I don’t want that. That hurts me.”
The 39-year-old star figured it would be easy to get out of the marriage if things didn’t work.
She recalled thinking: “Divorce doesn’t seem that complicated. Like, it’s probably pretty straightforward.”
When it came to the marriage ceremony, the producer “literally printed out a marriage contract online and got some guy on the internet to come over” to Emmy’s house.
She added: “I found a white turtleneck that was in my closet and threw it on ‘cause I was like, ‘This is appropriate, right?’
“Literally not hearing the smoke detector in my head being like, ‘Don’t do this. You don’t have to do this.’
“It was my intention not to tell anybody, because I knew in my gut it wasn’t right.”
Justin failed to visit his wife during the six months she was in Mexico and things quickly went South when she returned home.
She said: “It became abundantly clear we weren’t a match in any way.”
Emmy – who is now married to Sam Esmail and has a five-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son with him – only told her own mother about her marriage when Jason filed for divorce in September 2009.
She said: “I told my mom, ‘Hey, I’m breaking up with Justin, and I need a lawyer.’ She was like, ‘You did not.’ I was like, ‘I did.’
“And my mom has always been somebody that mobilises. If anyone is going through a break-up – my mom is not employed right now – so, if you need someone to show up, she’ll send you for a manicure and be like, ‘I have the U-Haul. Go take care of yourself.’”
Emmy Rossum wed after ultimatum
