Van Hunt shares love letter to girlfriend Halle Berry
Van Hunt wants people to get a glimpse of the real Halle Berry.
The Grammy-winning musician, 51, authored an essay for his girlfriend's website rē?spin, calling it, "The article I wish someone would write about Halle Berry." It's about preconceived notions — especially about celebrities, like the Oscar winner — leading him to share a little about the woman he's been dating for nearly two years.
“The face of Revlon has no lotion?” that is what Hunt wondered to himself "while drying my hands and scanning Halle Berry’s bathroom for hand moisturizer," one of the first times at her home. "As it turns out she has plenty of hand moisturizer, I just wasn’t looking in the right place; which could be a metaphor for something we’ve all overlooked about her. We can never really know anyone; not while limited to studying them through portholes, as we do. We can gather up glimpses of intimacies and guess about their meaningfulness, but we all have blind spots to the fullness of others, and moreover, to celebrities. we think we know them, their environments, and their processes."
He writes in the love letter that "the reality is we don’t know sh**" about celebrities from seeing them onscreen or reading about them in print. "We humans hold complicated layers of secrets and idolatry; and it is within these rabbit warrens that comprehension of our strangeness is tucked away."
Hunt said that when people talk about Berry, it's usually about her "beauty" or best roles, "but never of heart." He said, to him, it's "impossible to peer inside Halle without noticing her heart; and the principles that make it thump."
He said she has "the heart of a saloon owner who opens up shop in the fertile wild west and all at once sits with, presides over, entertains, and tames the lawless cowboys who are also her customers. She can speak their language of freedom because she dares to be free. she is what Toni Morrison called an outlaw woman: Outlaw women are fascinating – not always for their behavior, but because historically women are seen as naturally disruptive and their status is an illegal one from birth if it is not under the rule of men.”
He called her a "fighter" for survival and respect. "Perhaps the fight engulfing her at deepest depths is for the expectation of being heard and never having to wonder if her words will be written like she says them," he wrote of the Monster's Ball star.
Hunt said she is brutally honest, respectful of everyone, a listener, punctual and giving, with a "a fairytale quality to her generosity."
She "waits on nothing and leads the rhythm where she wants it to go," he writes, and "knows that magic is made, and she was not made for waiting on it to happen." He notes that quality "could be interpreted as 'controlling,' but a more obvious explanation is that this man’s world has made this woman acutely aware that survival is a thing that must be secured, not hoped for. No one ever discusses this tenacity when describing her."
He also said that none of her "extraordinary accomplishments have protected her from ordinary struggles," as she herself recently said Halle Berry says her appearance hasn't spared her "one heartbreak or heartache."
Hunt met Berry in the beginning of post-production for Bruised, a film she directed (in her directorial debut), produced and stars in as a top female MMA fighter; out now on Netflix.
He wrote about her "endless days" bringing it all together in production. How she found investors for the film, put up her own money and gave up her salary and director's salary to get it made. And described it as "maniacally onerous."
"The feat of bringing Bruised to screen is deserving of an embarrassment of praises," he said.
While promoting the film, Berry has had praise for her partner too. Berry shared her commitment to him while telling a story about "'marrying'" Hunt, with her 8-year-old son Maceo leading impromptu (and unofficial) vows.
"This was a ceremony by an 8-year-old in the back seat of the car who said, 'Mom, you should get married to him,'" Berry said on Live with Kelly and Ryan of her vehicle vows. "I said, 'Really, I should marry to him?' He said, 'Yeah, I pronounce you man and wife.' So we're like, 'Oh, okay. We're married!' But we're not married... So that's our commitment ceremony. It's silly. It's sweet."
She said what she loves about it all is that, "When you blend families, it's really hard. So the good news is, my kids are comfortable and that's all that matters. If they ain't happy, we ain't happy. That's all you need. You just need them to be happy."
Berry shares Maceo with her third husband Olivier Martinez, whom she divorced in October 2015. She's also mom to daughter Nahla, 13, whom she shares with ex Gabriel Aubry.
Berry and Hunt confirmed their relationship in Sept. 2020, but had been dating several months prior before going public. They made their red carpet debut at the 93rd Academy Awards.
