NEED TO KNOW
- Hugh Jackman and rumoured fiancée Sutton Foster have been spotted looking tense and distant on two separate occasions within a week.
- The sightings come amid a reported meeting request summons from Hugh’s ex-wife, Deborra-lee Furness.
- New Idea‘s body language expert believes “there is obviously a conflict of some kind” between the couple.
- Sources say Hugh and Sutton were open to clearing the air with Deb, but the actor may now have cold feet about the meeting.
Two unusually tense sightings of Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster in the space of a week have left many wondering if the pair are at loggerheads over an alleged meeting request from Hugh’s ex-wife, Deborra-lee Furness.
On May 26, Hugh and Sutton, 51, appeared to be locked in a tense discussion as they walked into a New York building. They were on their way to do a couple’s workout. It was a stark contrast to their loved-up outing at the Met Gala earlier in the month.
“They definitely didn’t seem on the same page about something,” said an onlooker.
Reviewing the photos, Dr Christiaan Willems, a Queensland-based body language expert, tells New Idea, “There is little doubt that there is obviously a conflict of some kind. Hugh appears to be attempting to reassure her – ‘calming the waters’, so to speak.”
However, Dr Willems adds: “I do not believe that that conflict lies so much within the relationship with Hugh, but rather that Sutton feels somewhat internally conflicted. Perhaps due to her public stance and statements about ‘successful women’s shared experience of loneliness’ – despite their success.”
Indeed, while speaking on a Women’s Health panel recently, Sutton reportedly admitted, “I’ve been a leading lady for a long time… but often I feel really alone.”
“I reached out to a lot of my contemporaries last year, and a lot of the women on Broadway, and we are all usually on our own. Everyone shared the commonality of loneliness.
“Women of power can actually support each other, and we don’t have to be pitted against each other. There’s room for more than just one of us.”
Are Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster still together?
While Hugh and Sutton are still very much an item, a closer look at her missing jewelry hints at the internal tension the Broadway star is currently facing.
It was pointed out that, during the May 26 outing, Sutton wasn’t wearing the diamond ring she debuted at the Met Gala.
While Sutton wore the giant rock on her left index finger at the event, many speculated it could have been an engagement ring, following reports that Hugh secretly proposed over New Year’s.
Several days earlier, on May 19, a grim-faced Hugh and Sutton were seen loading luggage into a car and leaving his apartment.
Dr Willems adds, “I believe the conflict lies more in an internal tension between her openness to sharing with other women, whilst simultaneously feeling that her intimate relationship with Hugh is somehow still threatened by another ‘successful woman’ in Deborra-lee Furness, who is no doubt feeling aggrieved and indeed betrayed.”
Are Hugh Jackman and Deborra-lee Furness still friends?
The relationship between Hugh and Deborra-lee remains complicated, especially now that Deb’s apparent request for a face-to-face meeting is introducing a new wave of psychological friction for the trio.
As exclusively reported by New Idea, Deborra-lee, 70, has seemingly requested a meeting with her ex and his new love to clear the air once and for all.
Like Hugh and Sutton, Deb is based in New York City.
Initially, it was said that Hugh and Deb, who split in September 2023 after 27 years of marriage, were trying to remain civil for the sake of their son Oscar, 26, and daughter Ava, 20.
More recently, New Idea was told that the ex-couple were not on the best of terms right now; however, Deb is now eager to move forward.
Of the meeting request, our source claimed, “This isn’t about Deb being angry or wanting to read Sutton the riot act. It’s about closure.
“Watching Hugh and Sutton parade around the city, openly flaunting their romance and mingling with all the same people they used to socialise with as a couple, is incredibly painful and humiliating.”
At the time, our insider said Sutton and Hugh were both open to accepting Deb’s surprise invitation.
However, following these recent outings, it seems as though one of them might have had a change of heart.
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