“Eat, Pray, Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert has opened up about the breakdown of her second marriage to Felipe, who she chronicled meeting at the end of her bestseller, by revealing that she has fallen in love with her best female friend.
“Many of you already know who Rayya Elias is to me. She’s my best friend, yes, but it’s always been bigger than that. She’s my role model, my traveling companion, my most reliable source of light, my fortitude, my most trusted confidante. In short, she is my PERSON,” Gilbert wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday.
The author, who is best known for her 2006 memoir that became a hit movie starring Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem, said her new relationship led to the demise of her previous one.
“For those of you who are doing the math here, and who are wondering if this situation is why my marriage came to an end this spring, the simple answer is yes,” she wrote, adding: “(Please understand that I cannot say anything more about it than that. I trust you are all sensitive enough to understand how difficult this has been. As David Foster Wallace once wrote: ‘The truth will set you free — but not until it’s had its way with you.’ Yes, it has been hard. Yes, the truth has had its way with us. And yes, the truth still stands).”
But there is a heartbreaking part of Gilbert’s revelation: Elias is battling pancreatic and liver cancer, “for which there is no known cure,” she said.
“In the moment I first learned of Rayya’s diagnosis, a trap door opened at the bottom of my heart (a trap door I didn’t even know was there) and my entire existence fell straight through that door,” Gilbert wrote. “From that moment forward, everything became about HER. I cancelled everything in my life that could be cancelled, and I went straight to her side, where I have been ever since.”
“Death — or the prospect of death — has a way of clearing away everything that is not real, and in that space of stark and utter realness, I was faced with this truth: I do not merely love Rayya; I am in love with Rayya. And I have no more time for denying that truth,” she went on to say of her best friend of 15 years.
“So why I am speaking publicly about this now? Because — for better or worse — I am someone who lives her life in the public eye … And when people look at me, they will inevitably see me with Rayya, because — as God is my witness — whenever Rayya is healthy enough to be by my side, she will be by my side. (Trust me: We will not be wasting a moment of our time together, for as much time as we are given).”
Read the whole post here.
Thank you for the love, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/rkCZVyIDwg
— Elizabeth Gilbert (@GilbertLiz) September 7, 2016