Anna Kendrick has kept her love life relatively private, but she hasn’t shied away from sharing advice about relationships.
Kendrick has attempted to stay under the radar when it comes to her own relationships. She dated Scott Pilgrim vs. the World director Edgar Wright from 2009 to 2013, later moving on with British cinematographer Ben Richardson. The twosome were together for six years before calling it quits in 2020.
Us Weekly confirmed in January 2022 that the Twilight star sparked a romance with Bill Hader, with whom she appeared in the holiday movie Noelle. Six months later, however, their flame fizzled out.
Following their whirlwind romance, Kendrick began to shed more light on her dating history — even the less-than-stellar experiences.
Scroll down to relive Kendrick’s most honest quotes — and unexpected advice — about dating:
October 2024
Kendrick reflected on her past “abusive” relationship during an appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. The actress explained that her experience wasn’t with the “traditional pattern” of toxic relationships.
Instead, there was an “overnight switch” with her past partner that “came out of absolutely nowhere.” In turn, Kendrick turned her life “completely upside” to try and fix herself, and the relationship. “I didn’t expect how totally convinced he was of his own victimhood,” she shared at the time. Kendrick said she doesn’t think her ex was “putting on a performance” while they were together. “I think he genuinely believed that I was, like, torturing him,” she said.
January 2023
Kendrick reflected on splitting from someone who was “for all intents and purposes my husband” six years into their relationship. “We had embryos together, this was my person,” she said on the “Armchair Expert” podcast, recalling the moment she knew something didn’t feel right. “I remember telling my brother, when things had first kind of gone down, ‘I’m living with a stranger. Like, I don’t know what’s happening.’ It wasn’t just, ‘Oh, I’m losing a relationship.’ It was that I believed that if we broke up or, you know, if he left basically, it was a confirmation that it’s because I’m impossible. I’m lucky that he’s even tolerating my bulls–t.”
January 2023
During her “Armchair Expert” appearance, the Tony nominee remembered how she discovered the “capital-T truth” about her former partner’s infidelity. “[I] was exposed to [a] year-long text exchange and went, ‘Oh, I was right about everything. Oh, OK.’ It was actually way worse than I even thought,” she confessed, claiming that her ex called her “insecure” about the alleged affair. “I ended up emailing this young woman and saying, ‘I just think it’s fair that you know that I know. I don’t put this at your doorstep. You made a mistake, but you’re 25. We’ve all done stupid s–t. I very much lay this at his doorstep.'”
December 2022
While working on her movie Alice, Darling, Kendrick realized she had more in common with her character than she anticipated. She told the Los Angeles Times that she was gaslit into feeling like a “monster” by an ex. “That was a big part of my problem. ‘Well he never hit me, and I’m not really afraid that he’s going to hit me. How do I discern between normal conflict and abuse? Why is my body in so much fear all of the time?'” she noted of experiencing psychological abuse. “You don’t have to believe that it might get physical for you to feel like you’re allowed to leave, that you deserve to be treated better, deserve to feel safe.”
November 2016
Kendrick divulged her biggest dating mistakes and desires in her book Scrappy Little Nobody. “It’s not that deep down I want someone to ‘take care of me,'” she wrote. “It’s that I’m exhausted, and occasionally overwhelmed by self-doubt. I’m steering the ship, but I don’t know what I’m doing. None of us do. But it would be so nice to believe that someone out there did, and that maybe they could take the wheel for a little while.”
April 2016
The Broadway vet poked fun at her then-single status in a tweet that turned oddly steamy. “Hi, I’m Anna, I’m alone tonight and I’m looking for a strapping man to come over because butternut squash is hard to dice,” she wrote at the time.
Kendrick later explained her humorous post, telling People: “I just thought it would be funny to start a tweet really sexual and end it on something really practical.”
November 2014
Kendrick joked about setting her standards a little out of reach. “That’s my dream. Absolutely. A prince, or a professional athlete,” she told the Daily Beast. “I just worked with the Green Bay Packers, actually, so I’m gettin’ into that world. I’m puttin’ out feelers. Somebody just take care of me! I hate my job. … Somebody please just take care of me.”
August 2013
“Two subjects to never bring up on a first date are anything to do with the actual reality of your family and, you know, liver cancer and how we’ve all probably got it,” the Drinking Buddies star teased during an interview with GQ, before recalling one of the best first dates she’d been on. “One of my favorite first dates, the guy was mad at me because I’d never tried Del Taco, I think? So we went to the drive-thru of Del Taco, and it was super cute. If you can make Del Taco romantic, then you’ve got a good thing going.”
March 2013
“If I were a contestant on The Bachelor I’d just end up falling in love with the weird sound guy and making things uncomfortable for everyone,” the actress quipped via Twitter.
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