It’s no mean feat for a relationship to last two decades, but Aussie TV legend Rebecca Gibney, 59, and her husband Richard Bell have already hit that milestone.
The Packed to The Rafters favourite and her long-time love have found themselves in the headlines more than ever following the 2024 TV Week Logie Awards Ceremony.
Rebecca was inducted into the TV Week Logies Hall of Fame and during her acceptance speech, made a touching tribute to her husband, Richard.
“Richard Bell, thank you for always asking the question every time a job comes up, ‘Will it make you happy? Will it bring you joy? Well, then, you have to do it.’ And for sacrificing his own work on so many occasions so that I could,” Rebecca said.
“You have been my rock and my love for nearly a quarter of and my love for nearly a quarter of a century and I’m so grateful for that.”
A happy, long-lasting relationship is something the actress, who shares 20-year-old son Zachary with Richard, has been open about during candid interviews in the past.
Speaking to Yahoo in 2017, the Wanted star insisted that “respect” was crucial in preventing a relationship from crumbling – as well as regular date nights.
“You must respect each other, it’s having complete and utter respect above all else and obviously love and being willing to compromise which is what we’ve always done,” Rebecca told the publication.
“We are quite lucky because we work together a lot so we are on the road a lot, and quite often we’ll find ourselves in beautiful hotels or amazing places for dinner so it’s easy to keep the romance alive.”
She added that she sees Richard as “my rock, he’s my everything.”
Doubling down on these claims, Rebecca gushed over Richard in an interview with The New Zealand Women’s Weekly the same year.
“He gets me utterly and we’re each other’s biggest fans. It doesn’t mean we don’t have issues, but we always work through them because I can’t imagine growing old with anyone else. He’s my rock and I think I’m his,” she said.
Almost a decade earlier, the Flying Doctors star also heaped praise on her partner while speaking to The Daily Telegraph in 2009.
“He is the kindest, most wonderful human I know,” Rebecca said of Richard. “And I trust him implicitly with anything and everything.”
Prior to meeting Richard, Rebecca was married to musician Irwin Thomas, who she wed in 1992 before their marriage came to a crashing halt three years later.
She also had a secret relationship with entertainment reporter Richard Wilkins when she was 22, and admitted he “broke her heart” after cheating on her with a flight attendant.
In 2017, Rebecca opened up about her relationship struggles in her younger years and confessed she was “self-sabotaging” some of them.
“In my 20s I probably sabotaged a few relationships because I was searching for someone to validate and take care of me as a woman. Therapists told me I was always looking for a father figure. I would have saved men a lot of hurt if I had understood this earlier in life,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Luckily, her fairytale ending was just around the corner and she crossed paths with Richard on the set of Magda Szubanski’s telemovie Dog Woman, and tied the knot on a Thai beach in 2001.
“I met my second husband, Richard Bell, when I was 35,” she revealed to the Sydney Morning Herald.
“I had dealt with my past and in walks this beautiful, tall New Zealander who happened to live on the same street as me when I was five. We met in 1999, got together in 2000 and married in 2001 and have been happy ever since.”
In 2004 they welcomed their first and only child, Zachary, completing their picture-perfect family.
And after all these years together, the greatest lesson she’s learned along the way? “Compromise,” she told The New Daily in 2018.
“I’m very blessed in that my husband is my best friend, but we’re not co-dependent. We depend on each other, but we’re both strong individuals who happen to love hanging out together.”
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