Sean Penn is taking the blame for his failed marriage to Leila George nearly seven months after she filed to divorce him.
“There’s a woman who I’m so in love with, Leila George, who I only see on a day-to-day basis now, because I f–ked up the marriage,” the “Mystic River” star told Hollywood Authentic in an interview published Saturday.
He added, “We were married technically for one year, but for five years, I was a very neglectful guy.”
Penn, 61, claimed he was never unfaithful to the Aussie actress, 30, or “any of that obvious s–t” but admitted he had started putting other things, like alcohol, before their relationship.
“[I] allowed myself to think that my place in so many other things was so important, and that included my place in being totally depressed and driven to alcohol and Ambien at 11 o’clock in the morning, by watching the news, by watching the Trump era, by watching it and just despairing,” he said.
Penn also touched upon how their 32-year age gap may have had something to do with their troubles as well as his bad habit of reaching for the bottle and obsessing over current events.
“As it turns out — this is going to shock you — beautiful, incredibly kind, imaginative, talented young women who get married to a man quite senior to them in years, they don’t actually love it when they get up from their peaceful night’s sleep and their new husband is on the couch, having been up since 4, watching all of the crap that’s going on in the world and has decided that 10:30 in the morning is a good time to neck a double vodka tonic and an Ambien and say, ‘Good morning, honey. I’m going to pass out for a few hours and get away from all this s–t,'” he said.
While he does not know if there is any hope for reconciliation, Penn said he has been trying to be a better man for George.
“Now, when I wash the dishes, I don’t answer my phone,” he said. “If I’m with my wife for a day, I don’t have my phone on, even though I’m juggling a lot of things. I don’t juggle them better by taking more calls. I can have my phone off and not watch the news for 12 hours now.”
He added, “And even when I’m stressed, I’m never stressed the way I used to be. Because we’ve all had our heart broken at some point.”
Despite trying to change for the better, the Oscar winner admitted that he still turns to vodka and Ambien to sleep through the night. However, he does not rely on them to “hide from the world now like [he] used to.”
George filed for divorce in October 2021 after just one year of marriage. Penn was spotted wearing his wedding ring days later.
The now-estranged pair dated for nearly four years before secretly marrying in July 2020. A few days later, Penn confirmed they had tied the knot.
“We did a COVID wedding,” he said on on “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” adding, “By that I mean it was a county commissioner on Zoom, we were at the house, my two children and her brother, and we did it that way.”
George, the daughter of “Law & Order” star Vincent D’Onofrio, is Penn’s third wife. He was previously married to Madonna from 1985 to 1989 and Robin Wright from 1996 to 2010. He and Wright, 56, share two children: daughter Dylan, 30, and son Hopper, 28.
He also dated Charlize Theron from late 2013 until the summer of 2015.
