Who Is Paul Rudd’s Wife? All About the Woman Who Stole Ant-Man's Heart
Get to know the lovely Julie Yaeger.
It’s hard not to fall in love with Paul Rudd: He’s funny, charming, good-looking, ageless, and by all accounts, a super nice guy. He’s a real keeper, which is probably why he’s been with his wife, Julie Yaeger, since the 1990s. But the comic actor and Marvel star is also notoriously private about his personal life. “I don’t want people to know that much about me, really. I don’t have much of an interest in being an open book,” he told The New York Times in 2019.
And this funnyman isn’t joking—Rudd doesn’t even have any social media (only an “official fan page” on Instagram). But, we were able to dig up some tidbits he’s dropped over the years about his life with Yaeger and their children, who are clearly the center of his very private life. “I identify myself as a parent and a husband way more than as somebody who rides around on the back of an ant,” Rudd, who stars in the third installment of the Marvel Ant-Man movies, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, told Marie Claire UK in 2018.
So how did Rudd meet his wife, when did they tie the knot, where do they live now and what's their married life like? Keeping reading to find out everything we know about Paul Rudd and wife Julie Yaeger.
Related: The Surprising Reason Paul Rudd Says His Career Makes Him Feel a Little 'Like Forrest Gump'
Is Paul Rudd married?
Yep, Rudd has been married since 2003 to Yaeger, a former publicist and screenwriter. They live in New York City with their two children, and also have a country house in upstate New York, according to Elle (although other outlets claim the upstate house is their main base). Unlike the typical Hollywood couple, their life seems refreshingly normal and drama-free.
"I don't think I'm going to sell a lot of tabloids," he told the magazine in 2011. "My wife and I have been together for 16 years. My parents were married my whole life until my father passed away a few years ago.” They set a great example of marriage for Rudd to follow.
Even after all these years, it appears Rudd and Yaeger’s relationship is solid. When asked what his most attractive feature is, he told Elle UK in 2015, “I’d say my wife.” Aww!
Related: Paul Rudd Explains Why Ant-Man Couldn't Kill Thanos In Avengers: Endgame
Who is Paul Rudd's wife?
Yaeger was a publicist in the 1990s and 2000s who has since ventured into screenwriting. She frequently appears with him on red carpets, and (fun fact!) they also co-own a candy store, Samuel’s Sweet Shop, in Rhinebeck, New York. In 2020, the couple gave a rare joint interview on the video talk show Friday Night In With the Morgans, which is co-hosted by The Walking Dead star Jeffrey Dean Morgan and his wife, actress Hilarie Burton. (Another fun fact: They're all neighbors, as the Rudds' upstate residence is reportedly also in Rhinebeck.)
How did Paul Rudd meet Julie Yaeger?
Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
The story of how the couple met is a total “meet cute” straight out of an aww!-dorable a rom-com. Right after his filmed the 1995 movie Clueless opposite Alicia Silverstone, Rudd decided to move to New York. According to a profile in Nylon Guy, the first day he arrived in the city, he was late to an audition, so he left his luggage with a young woman working at his publicist’s office, who offered to look after it. That woman was Yaeger.
"Clueless was getting ready to come out, that’s when we met,” Yaeger said on Friday Night In With the Morgans. “I worked at a PR firm that he hired. And he got more than PR,” she joked.
“She was the first person I met in New York. We started talking and there was a maturity with her–she had experienced some tragedy in her life. I had too, and the impression I got was, 'Wow, this is a woman. This isn’t a girl,'” Rudd told Marie Claire UK. "I was really taken with who she was and how she had overcome and was in the process of overcoming adversities in her life. There was a perspective that she had and still has on the world that you don’t come to easily—it’s earned and most people don’t have it at such a young age."
The couple got married in 2003.
Related: The Real Reason Paul Rudd Is So Nice
Did Paul Rudd make a movie with his wife?
Yes, Rudd executive produced and made a cameo in the 2017 movie Fun Mom Dinner, which Yaeger wrote (credited as Julie Rudd). Molly Shannon, Toni Collette and Adam Scott also star in the comedy about four moms who think they have nothing in common except their kids, but end up having an evening full of crazy antics. Although the film got mediocre reviews, parents will certainly relate to the film’s humor.
Basing the script on her own relationships with her mom friends, Yaeger told Vulture she also wanted to be real about the marriages depicted in the movie. “I think in marriages, it’s not that married people are always fighting, it’s almost more about what’s not happening–sort of missed connections,” she said, which can happen when parents are so focused on their young children.
Did Paul Rudd and Julie Yaeger inspire This Is 40?
Yep, Rudd’s longtime collaborator, the writer/director/producer Judd Apatow, has said he was inspired by Rudd and Yaeger’s real-life relationship when writing some of the scenes and dialogue for both 2007’s Knocked Up and its spin-off sequel, 2012’s This Is 40.
“Actually, there were more specifics in Knocked Up,” Rudd told the Jewish Journal. “When Judd was writing that movie, my wife once said, ‘I’m so sick of looking at your back,’ because I was just on the computer all day, checking my fantasy football scores.”
The couple also videotaped conversations and improv as Apatow was writing the script for This is 40.
“Judd had said, ‘Let’s make a movie about marriage and the things that we fight about—kind of a real, warts and all view of it.’ And sometimes you do need to ask your wife if there’s something on your [backside],” Rudd told the Jewish Journal. “Sometimes in a real marriage, it’s about asking your wife to look at this and what does that look like? While it’s not traditionally romantic, I would say it’s arguably romantic in its intimacy. The idea that a couple can do that for each other is very romantic. I also think that in a strange way, being able to fart in front of each other—that’s a very sweet gesture!”
Rudd was also honest about the scene in This Is 40 in which his character and another husband think about what would happen if their wives died.
“Not that I would ever fantasize about my wife’s death, but I think everyone has those moments where you play out the death of your spouse—and I thought that could be funny but also incredibly raw and exposed and hopefully not offensive, though I’m sure it will come off that way to some people,” Rudd told the Jewish Journal. “It’s just [mining] the things you would never say, and then turning them into a conversation. You could create laughs about how attractive you would look to someone if you were in mourning. I know that sounds horrible.”
Related: The Best Parts of Paul Rudd
Does Paul Rudd have kids?
Rudd and Yaeger have two kids, Jack Sullivan Rudd, who was born in 2006; and Darby Rudd, born in 2010. Rudd has been surprisingly open yet typically self-deprecating about what his children think of him.
“Oh, I’m still the embarrassing dad,” he told Marie Claire UK. “My daughter is 8 [in 2018] and thinks I’m the bee’s knees. My son is 13 and doesn’t even want me going to his school. I make jokes to a series of eye rolls.”
Do his kids really not find Rudd as hilarious as the rest of the world? Maybe they’re laughing on the inside. “My favorite thing is when they roll their eyes because it’s such a dad joke, but I know they find it funny,” he told the men’s fashion site Mr. Porter in 2018. “They kind of try to fight a smile.”
Their kids rarely make public appearances—an exception was at the unveiling of Rudd’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2015. But the power couple revealed a bit of their parenting style in Friday Night In With the Morgans.
“All they need to know is that you’re there and you love them, and that’s really all that matters, not the latest contraptions, none of it,” Yaeger said. “They can play with a dish towel and a sponge and be just be happy as anything else.” Rudd then deadpanned, “That’s what we gave our kids to play with, sponges and dish towels."
Related: What Keeps Paul Rudd Looking So Young
Who is Paul Rudd's son?
Last year, a bit of controversy around the uncontroversial Rudd—or rather his son—erupted when Rudd lookalike @JaycubRudd on TikTok played up that he’s actually the actor’s son. But he’s not, and as far as we know, the real Jack isn't on social media. But, Rudd told Mr. Porter that he makes Jack Spotify playlists, and Jack makes him hip-hop compilations in return.
Did Rudd earn any cred with Jack when he landed the role of Marvel superhero Ant-Man a few years back? Not exactly. "I told my own son that I was going to be in a superhero movie. He asked me what it was and I said I will be playing Ant-Man, and he said, 'What?' He was not impressed. What he actually said was, 'Well, I can’t wait to see how stupid that’ll be,’” Rudd told Entertainment Tonight.
But when the first Ant-Man film came out in 2015, it turned out to be a special experience for father and son.
“This is the first film of mine that he’s seen and it makes me proud and nervous at the same time. I took him to the premiere—he’d never been to a premiere, and that was a very moving experience for me. The best thing about anything is sharing it with your kid,” Rudd told The Guardian. “If I could now get a job playing with the Kansas City Chiefs…then I’d be really cool to him.”
Related: The Cast of Clueless Then and Now
Speaking of their favorite football franchise, Rudd and his son got to see the Chiefs win the Super Bowl when they attended the big game together in 2020. After the win, "poor Jack got a nosebleed he was so excited,” Rudd told a post-game reporter. “I have a bloody nose!" Jack said. "I didn't even know when it happened."
Is Paul Rudd divorced?
Absolutely not! Much of Hollywood could take marriage tips from Rudd and his wife, in fact. Although Rudd did admit to Mr. Porter that he’s “change-averse.” Could that have something to do with it? “I say to myself, ‘Well, am I going to get a better agent?’ I love my agent. ‘Am I going to get a better wife?’” Rudd said. Sometimes it’s hard to tell when he’s joking!
Who has Paul Rudd dated?
Shockingly, although he’s played opposite everyone from Reese Witherspoon and Leslie Mann to Elizabeth Banks, Rashida Jones and Evangeline Lilly, Rudd has never really been romantically linked in real life to any of them—after all, he’s been with Yaeger for over 25 years.
The onscreen costar who garnered the most gossip was Jennifer Aniston, who Rudd has known since they were young actors in LA; they then worked together in 1998’s The Object of My Affection, and from 2002 to 2004 on Friends, in which he played Lisa Kudrow’s love interest, Mike Hannigan. The two actors, who reunited for the film Wanderlust in 2012, joked about their fake romance to GQ. When asked if it was weird to kiss a longtime friend, Aniston said, “Nah, I’ve kissed him for years.” Rudd played along, saying, “We’ve made out for decades.”
Related: Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones' Love Story
Does Paul Rudd age?
Technically, yes, although the 52-year-old eerily looks like he hasn't changed a bit since his days as a fresh-faced young actor starring in Clueless. He’s not a fan of talking about his fountain-of-youth appearance, though. When The New York Times asked him about it, he replied, “I’m aware. It’s certainly nicer than hearing, 'God, that guy looks like s**t.' I don’t know what to say about any of this—there’s nothing really to say about it.”
He may be hesitant to talk about his age, but Yaeger opened up about how he celebrated his pandemic birthday in April 2020 with his family.
“We made him a little scavenger hunt and made him walk around the house. We made him go up and down the stairs and in each little spot there was a post-it telling him the next place to go,” she said on Friday Night In With the Morgans. From what we know of Rudd, this low-key celebration with the people he loves most was the perfect way to spend his birthday.