London - Her bestselling memoir described finding love again after divorce, but Elizabeth Gilbert has revealed how – after two marriages, the death of a female partner and a fling with a man – she is once more single.
Yet the author of 'Eat, Pray, Love', which became a bible for disaffected women and was turned into a Hollywood movie starring Julia Roberts in 2010, insists she is still seeking romance. "Oh yes," the 50-year-old tells today’s Event magazine, "I’ll always throw myself into life."
The book, which sold 13 million copies, described Gilbert’s epic road trip on which she fell in love with businessman José Nunes in Bali. He became her second husband in 2007, but Gilbert announced their split in 2016, later admitting it was due to her relationship with her best friend, writer Rayya Elias, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Speaking for the first time about Elias’s death, Gilbert says the drugs used to treat the disease reignited a dormant addiction to cocaine, turning the "love of my life" into a "monster". Remarkably, Elias managed to shake her addiction two months before her death in January 2018. "I’m so glad that she died sober and with her dignity," Gilbert says.
A year later, the American author fell in love with British photographer Simon MacArthur, but that relationship, she reveals, is now over.
Her latest novel, 'City Of Girls', was written as a release after caring for Elias. "It was really restorative to write about gaiety and joy," she says.