Natalie Portman has been dating her sexy boyfriend Benjamin Millepied, the NYC Ballet’s principal dancer, for about a year now. The first reports of their relationship started happening this past January, when Natalie was completing work on The Black Swan. Natalie and Benjamin met on the film – he was given a small on-camera part, and he was one of the ballet instructors for the film. Also – it was widely reported that Natalie “homewrecked” Ben’s relationship with his ballerina girlfriend, as it seems there was little to no time in between Ben’s relationship with the other chick and his relationship with Natalie. Now Page Six has an interesting take how their relationship really started:
Choreographer Benjamin Millepied became so obsessed with Natalie Portman on the set of “Black Swan” that he paid less attention to other dancers on set, a source says.
“They would go to do their shots and wouldn’t know any of the choreography because he was so involved with helping ‘Natalie, Natalie, Natalie,’ all the time,” an insider tells Page Six Magazine, out on Thursday. “There was a lot of drama.”
The source also suggested New York City Ballet principal dancer Millepied dumped his ballerina girlfriend Isabella Boylston for Portman to social-climb.
“Maybe they have a great relationship . . . But knowing Benjamin, I don’t think that’s how it is,” the source said.
[From Page Six]
I find this very interesting – and I’m kind of hoping there’s some truth to it, just because it would be fascinating to think that Natalie is dating a dude who was basically obsessed with her, and with the idea of dating someone famous. Ben has been attending all of the major film festivals with the rest of the Black Swan cast, although he and Natalie have taken pains to not pose together. Honestly, I was kind of wondering if they were even still together. They probably are – Natalie probably won’t dump him until the film’s promotion is over. That will teach him.
Header photo courtesy of Details. Additional photos courtesy of WENN.
not that sexy. his forehead is HUGE. like megamind huge. my opinion of her went down considerably with the homewrecker status.
He isn’t all that.
His body is *amazing* but his face…ehh, so so.
Job done NY Post!
He is surprisingly masculine for a ballet dancer
@Deeta: He’d be surprisingly straight for one, too 😀
I googled for pics of Isabella (because I’m cold and bored) and I found his own YouTube channel where he showcases his choreography. Starring the ex no less.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT89aUhtBW4
I wonder if he’ll replace those videos with Natalie Natalie Natalie.
Yummers!
This may all be true but wouldn’t it also be true that he had to spend more time with Natalie because she is not a dancer and she is playing one? So maybe their was some jealousy on the set…sometimes these things get blown up. Guess we’ll see where this goes when promotion is over.
Honestly with the budget and schedule for this film is it really probable for the dancers to NOT know the choreography before shooting? This would be completely unprofessional and I honestly can’t see how this could happen. Smacks of spiteful, gossipmongering to me.
He looks unhinged.
…this is quite intriguing.
I have met him, and he is handsome but short. Tom Cruise type short, perhaps shorter. Not Sylvester Stallone short, however.
I have met him, and he is handsome but short. Tom Cruise type short, perhaps shorter. Not Sylvester Stallone short, however.
@CandyKay: did you get a social climber vibe? whatever that may be
Funny, when they started dating I thought he looked better.
@Amy, I met him more than 10 years ago when I was a dance journalist and he was just starting out, and at that point he was quite shy and insecure – so no.
But for ballet dancers and particularly potential choreographers like Millepied, being a social climber is part of the job description, because ballet is by nature a money-loser and the only people who have money to fund it are wealthy society dames (and perhaps movie stars-)
Millepied’s boss, New York City Ballet head Peter Martins, spends a large portion of his time kissing up to rich donors, who are often the “social X-ray” type of can’t-be-too-thin-or-too-rich elderly women.
I would guess that, as a choreographer, Millepied would like to run his own company some day, so perhaps he’s just quick off the mark when it comes to potential financial support.
A Bauhaus tattoo? Really?
CandyKay, Is Sylvester Stallone even shorter than Tom Cruise? and about how tall would you estimate that Tom Cruise is? although it is hard to get an accurate read because short Hollywood men wear lifts. Thanks!
Until one of them tells precisely how and when they started dating, we don’t know. And it’s very rude and mean to call her a homewrecker.
@gloaming
I am cold and bored too, so I watched the video lol. It’s actually pretty nice. Thanks for posting.
This guy definitely wants to open his own studio or advertise at the very least if he’s posting videos like that. Sounds like social climbing is up his alley.
@Letitcia, I have never seen Sly and Tom stand next to each other, but I remember seeing Sly standing next to Dolly Parton on a shoot in New York and looking incredibly miniature even next to little Dolly. He’s perhaps 5´5″ and certainly not more than 5´6″, although his official biography says 5´9″. Supposedly they had to enlarge his photo to match the other guys on The Expendables poster.
Tom Cruise is officially around 5´7 1/2″, which is also where I would put Ben Millepied.
I just want her to date Jakey G. I think they’d have good looking babies. That’s all that really matters to me.
The upper half of this guy’s head is huge.
I have met both Cruise and Stallone. Both of them are short. I would guess Cruise is 5’7ish and Stallone is maybe a bit smaller but not much. Stallone appears larger beacuse of his overall bulk. Both of them generally wear lifts in their shoes at appearances. And on a side note both were very nice.
Her taste in men hasn’t worked out very well for her, has it?
I don’t particularly like Natalie Portman — she is very pretty but I find her overrated as an actress, so I hate to defend her, but if he wasn’t married, it wasn’t “homewreaking.” Dating someone, even for a long time, doesn’t equate to marriage.
That said, I read an interview with him & he strikes me as kind of shady, so I totally believe he is a “social climber.”
I would expect this to be true of anyone she dated…she seems really pretentious to me, herself.
I think he’s smoking hot. I hope it works out for the two of them. Just think how gorgeous the babies would be!
This report is ridiculous. Benjamin Millepied was already a current star in the ballet world (principal with NYCB and a famous choreographer) before he dated Portman. He doesn’t need Natalie’s “patronage” to advance his career. If he paid a lot of attention to her working on the movie it’s probably because A. He liked her and that’s what people do when they like someone B. She’s the star of the movie. If she can’t carry her routines the whole movie sinks.
I think people overestimate the value of Natalie. Not everyone is interested in climbing the Hollywood social ladder, his advertising his studio when he can is sound business sense, not climbing. If anything, I would think of Natalie as the climber since after all, SHE is the actress, not a dancer in the sense that she is truly someone who sacrifices for her art/love of dance.
She PLAYS a dancer while he is an actual dancer. He moves in a world filled wiht wealthy patronage and society, she doesn’t. If he is using this press he gets to advertise his studio, then good for him. It’s sensible.
@Ivy, well, he did say in a print interview i read somewhere…that he wanted to move into film/movies…and that it was a no-brainer on his part to focus on that opportunity. I honestly forget what i read, but it was enough to remember that he was quite frank about his ambitions.
@Ivy, a big star in the ballet world is…not really a big star anywhere else. Could anyone apart from a dance fan name three great current dancers? It’s been a long time since Nuryev, Fontyn, and Baryshnikov were household names.
I do not find small men hot…sorry
maybe i am accustomed to the overly-genial relations actors have with the camera but that man looks weirdly blank to me, in the eyes. a sociopath. he looks ‘unhinged’, yes, as someone noted already. then again, dancers are an odd bunch at that level of the business. all that pain and work, all those pills. hm.
did he mess with her birth control? good luck, natalie.
This relationship could possibly go down the path of alot of other hollywood relationships. She’s really successful and famous, he doesn’t enjoy the same level of fame. They’ll have a couple of children and a few years together then just split up after he gets fed up of not being the center of attention, like Halle Berry, Sandra Bullock, Hilary Swank, Reese Witherspoon’s husbands.