Source: Steve Granitz / Getty
After Garcelle Beauvais went public in December with her new relationship with screenwriter Michael Elliot, it seems that things have already ended between the couple.
The 53-year-old actress shared in a post this week that she’s single and that “#lifehappens.”
Just a couple of months ago, Beauvais shared a photo of herself with Elliot. The pair were matching in black and she captioned the image, “#datenight.” It was the first public mention that the two were an item, and the image has since been deleted. They also made their red carpet debut as a couple at the L.A. premiere of Jumanji: Next Level in December.
Elliot’s work includes writing the screenplays for films like Brown Sugar, Just Wright and Like Mike, so like Beauvais, he has some major Hollywood connections.
Their short-lived union was controversial though because he was still married — or at least in the process of divorcing his wife, Mecca. The estranged couple appeared on OWN’s Black Love, which many people pointed out when Beauvais shared that they were dating. But what they hadn’t realized was a few weeks prior to this new relationship announcement, Elliot and his wife did a video stating that they had separated, or were undergoing an ‘authentic uncoupling.’
“Shortly after we taped the show, which was the summer of 2018, we began a really rough patch as many married couples go through. And it got heavy, it got hard, and ultimately we decided that it was best that we transition from being married to being friends, being family,” he said in the clip. “It was a big decision for us and I think the knee-jerk reaction is divorce. That wasn’t the plan and now it’s divorce. All that we’ve been told about divorce is it’s an ugly thing. We didn’t want that.”
“We made a conscious decision that if we were going to do this, we were going to honor each other, honor what we shared,” Mecca added. “We’ve been together almost a decade in each other’s lives and married five years so those things were important to us. When we made that decision that we were going to transition, we didn’t even use the word divorce because we don’t like the negativity that’s really attached to divorce. We created a term, I created a term called ‘authentic uncoupling,’ and I was really determined to make sure that we ended this union with honor, with love, with respect, and we still have our friendship.”
Granted, all that didn’t mean he was officially single, but it meant that at least there wasn’t a reconciliation in the works.
Either way though, it didn’t make a difference in the long run, because it’s over between the screenwriter and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star. She’s looking forward to seeing what’s out there, after a friend responded to her “single” post, telling her a “laundry list of guys” were already asking him about how they could get to know her better. Beauvais replied, “Bring it lol.”
