It’s no mean feat for a relationship to last more than two decades, but Aussie TV legend Rebecca Gibney, 60, and her husband Richard Bell have already hit that milestone.
The Packed to The Rafters favourite and her long-time love tied the knot in Thailand in 2001, and have gone from strength to strength ever since.
Now, she is competing in Dancing with the Stars. While he is her number one supporter, she told our sister publication The Australian Women’s Weekly that he did not help her rehearse for the show.
“No! He’s not a dancer at all. He’d come over and cook for me and we’d go out to dinner and stuff,” she joked.
Read more about their relationship below.
Support at the Logie Awards
The couple found themselves in the headlines more than ever following the 2024 TV Week Logie Awards Ceremony.
Rebecca was inducted into the TV Week Logies Hall of Fame and during her acceptance speech, made a touching tribute to her husband.
“Richard Bell, thank you for always asking the question every time a job comes up, ‘Will it make you happy? Will it bring you joy? Well, then, you have to do it.’ And for sacrificing his own work on so many occasions so that I could,” Rebecca said.
“You have been my rock and my love for nearly a quarter of and my love for nearly a quarter of a century, and I’m so grateful for that.”
A happy, long-lasting relationship is something the actress, who shares 21-year-old son Zachary with Richard, has been open about during candid interviews in the past.
Being there for one another
Speaking to Yahoo in 2017, the Wanted star insisted that “respect” was crucial in preventing a relationship from crumbling, as well as regular date nights.
“You must respect each other, it’s having complete and utter respect above all else, and obviously love and being willing to compromise, which is what we’ve always done,” Rebecca told the publication.
“We are quite lucky because we work together a lot, so we are on the road a lot, and quite often we’ll find ourselves in beautiful hotels or amazing places for dinner, so it’s easy to keep the romance alive.”
She added that she sees Richard as “my rock, he’s my everything.”
Doubling down on these claims, Rebecca gushed over Richard in an interview with The New Zealand Women’s Weekly the same year.
“He gets me utterly, and we’re each other’s biggest fans. It doesn’t mean we don’t have issues, but we always work through them because I can’t imagine growing old with anyone else. He’s my rock and I think I’m his,” she said.
Almost a decade earlier, the Flying Doctors star also heaped praise on her partner while speaking to The Daily Telegraph in 2009.
“He is the kindest, most wonderful human I know,” Rebecca said of Richard. “And I trust him implicitly with anything and everything.”
Who was Rebecca Gibney’s first husband?
Prior to meeting Richard, Rebecca was married to musician Irwin Thomas, whom she wed in 1992 before their marriage came to a crashing halt three years later.
She also had a secret relationship with entertainment reporter Richard Wilkins when she was 22, and admitted he “broke her heart” after cheating on her with a flight attendant.
In 2017, Rebecca opened up about her relationship struggles in her younger years and confessed she was “self-sabotaging” some of them.
“In my 20s, I probably sabotaged a few relationships because I was searching for someone to validate and take care of me as a woman. Therapists told me I was always looking for a father figure. I would have saved men a lot of hurt if I had understood this earlier in life,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Meeting the love of her life
Luckily, her fairytale ending was just around the corner, and she crossed paths with Richard on the set of Magda Szubanski’s telemovie Dog Woman.
“I met my second husband, Richard Bell, when I was 35,” she revealed to the Sydney Morning Herald.
“I had dealt with my past, and in walks this beautiful, tall New Zealander who happened to live on the same street as me when I was five. We met in 1999, got together in 2000, and married in 2001, and have been happy ever since.”
In 2004, they welcomed their first and only child, Zachary, completing their picture-perfect family.
And after all these years together, the greatest lesson she’s learned along the way? “Compromise,” she told The New Daily in 2018.
“I’m very blessed in that my husband is my best friend, but we’re not co-dependent. We depend on each other, but we’re both strong individuals who happen to love hanging out together.”
For their 20th wedding anniversary in 2024, she penned a touching tribute on Instagram.
“When you find old pics of when you met your husband, and it makes you go all gooey inside,” she wrote. “I’m a lucky woman. 20 years married in November to the kindest (clearly incredibly handsome) gentle giant on the planet. Love you big R.”
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