Halle Berry Had To 'Go Through Fire' Before Finding 'Amazing' BF Van Hunt

Halle Berry is getting candid about her life before she found love with Van Hunt.

The actress revealed that after leaving her past marriages, she had an honest conversation with herself, which led her down a path of contentment and self-discovery. 

Berry finalized her divorce from her third husband, Olivier Martinez, in 2016 and started dating Hunt in 2020. 

During an exclusive talk with The Times, Berry revealed that after getting married and getting divorced three times, she felt the need to take some time off for self-reflection. During this period, she remained single and celibate. 

“I was solo and celibate for four years. I had to really sit myself down and be alone and grow and reflect and realize my value,” she said. 

Following this deeply reflective period, the “X-Men” actress came to the conclusion that even if she never found The One, she was “enough” by herself. She listed off some of the things she had to be grateful for, including her children, career, and an “embarrassment of riches,” which was “more than enough” for her. 

Berry admitted that her past experiences shaped her and made her “ready” to meet Hunt, with whom she has found deep satisfaction. 

“I had to go through fire and burn to get to the point of appreciating a person like him. I was a moth to a flame. I no longer am that person,” she happily recalled. 

She also discussed her struggles with intimacy, which eventually turned out to be premenopausal symptoms. In her words:

“Sex started to feel like I had razor blades in my vagina. I finally had this amazing man in my life, and that part started to feel right for me. And then I had this problem and I thought, ‘There’s something terribly, terribly wrong here.’”

After getting diagnosed, she went down another path of “self-discovery and reconnaissance.” 

Although Berry has found happiness with Hunt, she is in no rush to walk down the aisle just yet. 

According to The Blast, Hunt has already popped the question to Berry. However, they want to get married someday as an expression of their love, not out of a need to validate their relationship. 

Additionally, Berry explained that they've both been married before, and now, they want to do it on their own terms. 

Berry’s reluctance to walk down the aisle checks out, as she has already said “I do” three times in the past. She first got married to David Justice in 1993, but their marriage fell apart three years later, and they finalized their divorce in 1997. 

Last year, Justice opened up about their marriage, noting that they both had different ideas of marriage before they tied the knot.

While he was expecting a more traditional woman who would cook and clean, the “Catwoman” star was too occupied with her career to focus on being homely, per The Blast. 

The former baseball player acknowledged that while therapy might have salvaged their marriage, they were both too engrossed in their individual things to pour enough time and attention into their marriage. 

Shortly after Justice commented on his marriage to Berry, the “Bruised” actress shared a birthday post on Instagram, showing off bikini shots as she posed with Hunt.

The carousel featured pictures of Berry laughing while holding a coconut, and in the last slide, a cake. The post’s caption read, “Phew…! cooking, cleaning, and mothering.”

This seemed to be a response to Justice’s statements about Berry not being “motherly” enough. Fans were quick to notice this, and several of them applauded the actress for her clapback. 

“I knew you would roll your eyes with that one and post something smooth, and you DID!" one fan wrote, per The Blast.

A few months after Berry seemingly responded to her ex-husband, she took the stage at the New York Times Dealbook Summit, where she openly advocated for women’s health. 

According to The Blast, she shed light on the menopausal struggles women often go through and directly called out California’s Governor Gavin Newsom.

She slammed him for vetoing a menopause bill that could have played a key role in transforming women’s health. 

According to Berry, Newsom was overlooking and “devaluing” women and noted that he should “probably” not be the next president.