Highlights
- Will Arnett and Amy Poehler experienced a painful divorce in 2012, with Arnett even crying on the side of the road for an hour during the process.
- Following their divorce, Arnett and Poehler have remained respectful friends and co-parents to their two sons.
- The couple has chosen to keep the details of their divorce private, both citing the personal and sad nature of the situation.
In 2022, BoJack Horseman voice actor Will Arnett opened up for one of the first times on the topic of his "excruciating" split from Parks and Recreation star Amy Poehler. In fact, he revealed that at one point during their 2012 divorce, things had taken such a toll that he, "pulled over to the side of the road and cried for an hour."
The Arrested Development co-stars were together for nine years. Nowadays, they're co-parenting their two sons Archie and Abel. On top of that, they're also a shiny beacon to co-parents everywhere, thanks to their mutual respect and continued friendship. We can't help but wonder, though: what was their marriage really like?
Updated September 1, 2023: More than a decade after announcing their divorce, both Amy Poehler and Will Arnett have gone on to see other people. Amy was in a two-year relationship with Nick Kroll, and Will has been with Alessandra Brown for several years, with the two sharing one son. That said, don't expect to hear much about their new flames, any time soon. Despite sharing a child, Alessandra has made relatively few appearances with Will. As for Amy, she's previously joked that she hates it when her relationship is public knowledge.
Will Arnett & Amy Poehler's Relationship Timeline
Arnett had had a crush on Poehler since 1996. He first saw her at an improv performance with Upright Citizens Brigade. "I went with my then-girlfriend, and she was like, 'You have a crush on that girl!'" the actor recalled. "Amy did stick out. She was fantastic and obviously really cute." Four years later, he started dating the Moxie star and director. Poehler later confessed that Arnett "makes [her] feel very safe." They eventually tied the knot in 2003. The pair also worked together on multiple projects throughout their marriage.
They starred in 2007's Blades of Glory as incestuous figure skaters and played each other's love interests in Arrested Development and Parks and Rec. In 2012, the two announced that they were getting divorced. They kept the reason private at the time. According to sources, they started feeling "more like best friends" and that romance had "fizzled out" of their marriage. "The two still love each other very dearly — and everything is completely amicable — but the romance died and neither one of them was happy, so something had to be done," the insider revealed.
Why Will Arnett & Amy Poehler Divorced
Arnett and Poehler's divorce was finalized in 2016. Through the years, they never shared the reason behind their split, themselves. When asked why they kept it from the media, Poehler said that divorce is "too sad and too personal" to talk about. "I don’t really talk about it because I have a real respect for my ex-husband and the father of my children, and I also don't like people knowing my s--t," said the Mean Girls star. At one point, she did say that "getting a divorce really sucks" — the only detailed statement she gave about the breakup. "Imagine spreading everything you care about on a blanket and then tossing the whole thing up in the air," she wrote in her 2014 memoir Yes Please.
"The process of divorce is about loading up that blanket, throwing it up, watching it all spin, and worrying what stuff will break when it lands," she continued. Arnett also hated the press coverage of their divorce. He got particularly annoyed at a reporter who claimed to be "Team Amy" at the time. "I wanted to respond and go, 'We're human beings in a relationship and our relationship fell apart. It's heartbreaking. We have two kids, and this is not some f---ing game,'" the actor said in Dax Shepard's podcast Armchair Expert.
In February 2022, Arnett also recalled getting so emotional during the divorce. As he told The Guardian, back in 2013, on his way to shoot season 4 of Netflix's Arrested Development, he "Pulled over to the side of the road and cried for an hour." He added that the divorce was "almost excruciating … Just brutal, brutal, brutal."
How Is Will Arnett And Amy Poehler's Relationship Today?
The two have remained good friends following their divorce. In April 2020, they were seen self-isolating together during a virtual event called "Strong Together, Tous Ensemble." It was all for co-parenting, though. A month after the event, Arnett welcomed his first son with his girlfriend Alessandra Brawn. It's unknown when the two started dating, but they made their relationship public in 2019. "It is crazy to me how much my whole life has shifted in five years in such a dramatic way. Isn't that wild," Arnett told E! News of his new life.
He added that he's thankful for having Poehler as the mother of his older sons. "It's been almost 10 years and my kids are so lucky that Amy is their mother," he said. "And I'm so lucky that we're such a huge part of each other's lives, even more so than we were five years ago." Meanwhile, Poehler remains a single gal (at least that's what she tells the media). Granted, after her divorce from Arnett, she went on to date comedian Nick Kroll for over two years.
She also "blew" a date with Full House star John Stamos. "I was like, 'Oh, maybe this is a date!'" she told Howard Stern in 2014. "But I blew it … I remember thinking, like, 'Oh, s--t, if this is really a date …' I think I was wearing a Leslie Knope shirt — I think a shirt from [the set of Parks and Recreation]. I wasn't foxy." Stamos later said "it was a date in my eyes" and that he's "really good friends" with Poehler these days.
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