"I'm living with a stranger now": Anna Kendrick opens up on her abusive relationship

Academy Award nominee Anna Kendrick recently opened up about her abusive relationship with a former boyfriend on Armchair Expert, a podcast hosted by Dax Shepard and Monica Padman. Without identifying him, the actress and singer told the podcast hosts that she had future plans with the man, but it all went kaput due to his infidelity.

The episode, which aired on Monday, January 9, 2023, had Kendrick sharing her insights on foul relationships, the term “gaslighting,” and how she copes with trauma.

When asked about toxic relationships, Kendrick spoke about this former boyfriend of six years with whom she had planned to start a family. She said:

“I was with someone — this was somebody I lived with, for all intents and purposes my husband. We had embryos together, this was my person. And then about six years in, about somewhere around there, I remember telling my brother, when things had first kind of gone down, ‘I'm living with a stranger.’”

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Multiple therapy visits and Al-Anon aided in Anna Kendrick's recovery

Elaborating on the aftermath, Anna Kendrick said that she thought that the relationship was crumbling because of her and she “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 b-----t.”

The Alice, Darling actress further shared that asking the partner didn’t help, because every time she brought up the issue behind his personality shift, he would “scream,” and she said she would curl up “in a ball, sobbing.”

Kendrick added that she finally did gather the courage to question him once when he visited her on the sets. The 37-year-old shared:

“The worst possible thing was, I was like, ‘please don’t say this girl’s name,’ and he started talking about this girl.”

The former couple underwent therapy to save whatever was left of the relationship. But, while the affair couldn’t be salvaged, Kendrick at least learned that it was alright to be on her own.

After it ended, the Cake star “dismantled” her life and bought time from her agency CAA to deal with the grief. She also started visiting multiple therapists and went to Al-Anon. The actress said:

“I did start going to Al-Anon while all this was going on. I mean, look, I truly dismantled my life, and at first, that was as a reaction to the accusation that I was crazy and I was the one causing the problem.”

But in the end, all these measures proved fruitful in her recovery. She shared:

“All of these things ended up being very wonderful things for me in the long run, but initially went into them thinking, ‘Tell me how to stop being crazy. Tell me how to stop feeling anything.’”

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It's not the first time Anna Kendrick has spoken about her past emotional trauma

In September last year, Anna Kendrick highlighted how “a personal experience with emotional abuse” helped her deliver a heart-wrenching performance in Alice, Darling.

Directed by Mary Nighy, the drama was written by Alanna Francis. Before its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, Kendrick told People:

“I was coming out of a personal experience with emotional abuse and psychological abuse. I think my rep sent it (the screenplay) to me, because he knew what I'd been dealing with and sent it along. Because he was like, ‘This sort of speaks to everything that you've been talking to me about.’”

Anna Kendrick, who last featured in Alice, Darling, will soon be seen in The Dating Game. The film also marks her directorial debut.