Natalie Portman, Ben Millepied fight for marriage amid affair

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By Mara Siegler

June 2, 2023 | 3:45pm

Natalie Portman and her ballet dancer hubby Benjamin Millepied are battling to save their marriage after she discovered that he had an affair with a 25-year-old woman, sources tell Page Six.

We’re told the pair, who married in 2012, separated last year but managed to work through their relationship woes.

Now their marriage has once again been rocked by revelations that he cheated. New photographs from France suggest that the former New York City Ballet principal dancer has been spending time with glamorous young climate activist Camille Étienne.

And a source close to the couple tells Page Six, “They have not split and are trying to work things out. Ben is doing everything he can to get Natalie to forgive him. He loves her and their family.”

“She is incredibly private,” the source added. “Her biggest focus right now is protecting the kids.”

We hear it was an open secret on the set of Portman’s upcoming movie “May December,” which shot in November over the course of 23 days, that she and Millepied were having problems.

And word at the premiere at the Cannes Film Festival this month was that the couple were still on thin ice. Portman, 41, was in the French Riviera city making the promotional rounds, but Millepied, 45, was nowhere to be seen.

A source close to the couple insisted they were still an item at the time. Meanwhile, Portman and Millepied were snapped right after the film fest at a Beyoncé concert in Paris May 26. More photographs showed them kissing while having dinner May 29 in the French city.

Then on Friday a new report in French magazine Voici alleged that Millepied has been spending time with Étienne.

“In early March, the star of the ‘Star Wars’ saga discovered that her husband was having an affair with a young woman,” the magazine claimed.

The mag has published images of Millepied and Étienne going into his office separately on May 24 and exiting ten minutes apart almost two hours later.

Etienne, a pal of eco superstar Greta Thunberg, has made a number of short films on the environment and written the book “For an Ecological Uprising: Overcoming Our Collective Powerlessness.” She was also reportedly named by French Vanity Fair as one of the “50 French women who made 2020.”

Portman and Millepied met in 2009 on the set of her Oscar-winning ballet movie “Black Swan,” for which he did the choreography. He was in a long term relationship with fellow dancer Isabella Boylston. They got engaged in 2010 and married at Big Sur, Calif., in 2012.

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Portman was pregnant with their first child when accepting her Best Actress award for the film in 2011, saying, “To my beautiful love, Benjamin Millepied, who choreographed the film and has now given me my most important role of my life,” pointing to her stomach.

The couple share son Aleph, 12, and Amalia, 6.

In addition to “Black Swan” they also collaborated on Portman’s 2018 movie “Vox Lux.”

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They celebrated their ten year anniversary in August 2022, posting Instagram messages to each other.

“It keeps getting better,” Portman wrote.

Rep for Portman and Millepied declined to comment. Étienne didn’t respond to our request for comment.