Nocturnal 
Sam Taylor-Johnson has once again addressed the 23-year age gap between her and husband Aaron Taylor-Johnson, saying their relationship has “mad energy” and doesn’t feel the way outsiders imagine.
The filmmaker, 59, and the actor, 36, have been together since they met on the set of her 2009 directorial debut Nowhere Boy, the John Lennon biopic that first brought them into each other’s orbit. At the time, Aaron was 18 and Sam was 42.
They didn’t start dating until after filming wrapped, and the pair went on to marry in 2012. They now have two daughters together, Wylda, 13, and Romy Hero, 11.
Speaking previously to The Guardian, Sam brushed off the ongoing fascination with their age difference, pointing out that older men dating younger women rarely face the same scrutiny. “We’re a bit of an anomaly, but it’s that thing: after 14 years you just think, surely by now it doesn’t really matter?” she said.
She added that the subject only really comes up when journalists raise it. “I mean, it’s coming up now because you’re asking,” she said, noting that outside opinion tends to come from “people who don’t know us”.
Why it matters
The couple’s relationship has drawn public comment ever since news of them dating first broke, and that scrutiny has never fully gone away. Sam has said she’s seen “vicious” and abusive comments about their marriage online, but puts it down to other people’s unhappiness rather than anything to do with her own family. “It is just people upset with their own sadness, with misgivings about their own life,” she said, adding that their children “see two loving, happy parents, so it doesn’t really register.”
Aaron has also pushed back firmly against suggestions that he was in any way groomed by his wife, insisting he was the one who pursued the relationship. Speaking to Rolling Stone UK, he argued that by 18 he had already lived a fast-tracked life in the film industry. “What most people were doing in their twenties, I was doing when I was 13,” he said. “You’re doing something too quickly for someone else? I don’t understand that.”
Sam’s marriage to Aaron has now outlasted her previous marriage to art dealer Jay Jopling, with whom she has two daughters, now 25 and 15. “So, if you think of it in that way, then the age gap doesn’t really make any difference,” she said.
Public interest flared up again more recently when rumours linked Aaron to singer Ariana Grande, after a “blind item” and a since-debunked photoshopped image circulated online, as reported by IBTimes UK. The image was later shown to actually be a picture of Aaron and Sam. Neither Aaron nor Grande has commented on the rumours.
What happens now
Sam Taylor-Johnson continues to work as a director, with credits including Fifty Shades of Grey and the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black, while Aaron remains in demand as an actor, with speculation ongoing about a potential future James Bond role. The couple have given no indication their relationship has changed, and both have continued to speak publicly in defence of their marriage whenever the subject resurfaces.
