Revealed: What Billy Bob Thornton’s Former Partners Really Think About Him

Billy Bob Thornton, known for his roles in iconic films like “Bad Santa,” “Love Actually,” and “Armageddon,” as well as collaborations with renowned directors such as the Coen brothers, Terrence Malick, and Jim Jarmusch, has carved out a distinctive niche in Hollywood. Beyond acting, he has also made his mark in the music world with his blues-rock band, The Boxmasters, and recently with his involvement in Taylor Sheridan’s TV western series, “Landman.” Despite his professional success, Thornton’s personal life, particularly his tumultuous romantic history, often garners as much attention as his career achievements.

The Oscar and Golden Globe winner has been through five divorces over his extensive career, which led him to declare, at one point, that marriage simply “doesn’t work” for him. Nevertheless, Thornton found himself walking down the aisle again in 2014 with makeup artist Connie Angland, the mother of his daughter Bella. Remarkably, the couple has remained together for over a decade. However, rumors suggest their relationship may have some underlying issues. To better understand Thornton’s role as a husband, we explore the perspectives of his former wives and a particularly outspoken ex-girlfriend on their experiences with the actor.

Thornton’s first marriage dates back to 1978, well before he gained fame. His bride, Melissa Lee Gatlin, shared his Arkansas roots, though their union was short-lived, ending in 1980. The divorce cited “incompatibility and adultery on his part,” hinting at patterns that would follow in his later relationships. Gatlin stayed mostly out of the spotlight even as Thornton’s career soared, but she did speak out in 2011 following a tragic incident involving their daughter, Amanda, which resulted in the death of a toddler and Amanda’s subsequent incarceration. This incident thrust both Thornton and Gatlin back into the public eye.

Billy Bob Thornton first got hitched in 1978, long before he started to make any kind of notable headway in the entertainment world. Melissa Lee Gatlin, who also hailed from Arkansas, was the lucky lady, although within two years she perhaps believed she’d been hopelessly unlucky.

In a sign of things to come, Thornton was hit with divorce papers in 1980, with Gatlin citing “incompatibility and adultery on his part” as the reason. Gatlin appeared to stay relatively quiet about the marriage even when Thornton eventually made it in Hollywood, but did mention his name in 2011 following a tragedy involving Billy Bob Thornton’s daughter Amanda, which resulted in the death of a toddler and the incarceration of Thornton and Gatlin’s only child.

In 2011, Thornton’s eldest daughter, Amanda Brumfield, was found guilty of aggravated manslaughter after 1-year-old Olivia Madison Garcia died in her care, and was given a 20-year jail sentence. The defense had argued that the fatal head injury had occurred when the tot attempted to climb out of her playpen. However, prosecutors claimed the near-four-inch skull fracture couldn’t have been caused by such a small fall. “It’s just a horrible situation and it’s being made worse and exploding even more just because of who my ex-husband is,” Gatlin (now Parish) told the New York Post. Brumfield was freed nine years into her prison term following an appeal from the Innocence Project of Florida.

While Billy Bob Thornton’s first of his six wives wasn’t in the entertainment industry, his second was. In fact, Toni Lawrence — who wed the serial monogamist in 1986 — was undoubtedly more well known when they first got together having previously played Wanda Owens in daytime soap opera “Days of Our Lives,” appeared in the TV movie “When Your Lover Leaves,” and guested on the likes of “Quincy, M.E.,” “McCloud,” and “Marcus Welby, M.D.” In contrast, her husband had only just made his screen debut in psychological thriller “Hunter’s Blood.”

Sadly, their shared career passions didn’t appear to help their romantic passions. Just like his first marriage to Melissa Lee Gatlin, Thornton found himself in the divorce courts after two years. It’s not known exactly what the reasons were on this occasion, but we do know that, once again, the papers were filed against the aspiring actor.

In a 1997 interview with People, Lawrence — who after playing a doctor in the 1990 TV movie “Donor,” quit the world of showbiz, pivoted into pottery, and got remarried — had things both good and bad to say about her former husband. “He’s really talented, that’s obvious now,” she said at a time when Thornton had just received the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award and a Best Actor nomination for his directorial debut “Sling Blade.” “But … he’s very troubled,” Lawrence continued. It seems his ex-wife could see the tragic life of Billy Bob Thornton that the rest of the world couldn’t.

Billy Bob Thornton’s third wife Cynda Williams is also a thespian. In fact, she achieved her career breakthrough in the same year that the pair tied the knot thanks to her mesmerizing turn as Clarke Bentancourt in Spike Lee’s 1990 jazz drama “Mo’ Better Blues.”

The couple even mixed business with pleasure two years later when they both appeared in “One False Move,” a crime thriller in which Thornton starred as murderous criminal Ray and Williams played his equally dangerous girlfriend Fantasia. The former also co-wrote the script with regular cohort Tom Epperson, and Thornton and Williams received plaudits for their lovers-on-the-run performances, with Williams receiving nominations for Most Promising Actress at the Chicago Film Critics’ Association and Best Female Lead at the Film Independent Spirit Awards.

But at the same time their movie careers were thriving, the actors’ relationship was floundering and by the time “One False Move” hit cinemas, they’d divorced. “We were just friends; we had no business being married,” Thornton later told People. Although Williams doesn’t seem to have explicitly discussed their time together, she did at least appear to acknowledge their professional collaboration in an interview with CloselyObservedFrames. “I’ve enjoyed every type of actor I’ve worked with,” she responded when asked about her various co-stars. “I’ve had some difficult experiences with some actors, but I still was believable on the screen with them. It’s always worked out so far.”

While his first three marriages all ended after just two years, Billy Bob Thornton’s fourth union made it all the way to four. But his relationship with Pietra Dawn Cherniak, a former Playboy model 14 years younger that he met outside an eatery in Los Angeles, also came with double the trouble.

Indeed, in April 1997, in the wake of Thornton’s Academy Award win for “Sling Blade,” Cherniak took to the divorce courts, citing irreconcilable differences and the more damaging reasons of abuse. “Over the past year, at least once or twice per month, [Thornton] has hit me, pushed me, punched me, bit me or otherwise physically attacked me, sometimes in front of the children,” she argued according to court papers obtained by People, referring to their two young sons William and Harry James. 

Cherniak, who only several weeks earlier had joined Thornton at the Oscars, also requested a restraining order having claimed that her ex had “lifted me off the ground by my neck and said, ‘I’m going to kill you, and then I’m going to go to prison and the children will be orphans.’” The Hollywood star firmly refuted all the allegations in a statement and blamed Cherniak’s legal team for enforcing the narrative. “Our marriage was not perfect, but I never exhibited the behavior she’s accusing me of,” Thornton’s statement read. This is just one of many rumors about Billy Bob Thornton we can’t ignore. 

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.

“It’s like, all of a sudden you look at this person who knows you, who you feel safe with, and you say, ‘Wow. Wait a minute, I’ve been thinking about sharing my life with someone who really knows me and here he is,’” Laura Dern gushed to Redbook in 1999 (via The Observer) about Billy Bob Thornton after they became Hollywood’s latest power couple in 1997. Of course, she wasn’t so complimentary following the remarkably callous way their relationship ended.

Speaking to Talk magazine in 2000, a year after their split, Dern revealed that things between them had been all hunky-dory when she left their shared home to shoot a film. And yet, in a development she understandably found difficult to fathom, while home alone, Billy Bob Thornton married Angelina Jolie while Laura Dern was away.

“I’ve never heard from him again,” Dern revealed (via ABC News) before comparing their unforeseen separation to a “sudden death.” “For no one has there been any closure or clarity.” The “Jurassic Park” favorite, who’d also played Thornton’s wife on the 2001 dramedy “Daddy and Them,” which awkwardly came out long after they’d split, has kept schtum ever since, as has the man who essentially ghosted her. But the exes were forced to circle each other’s orbits when they were sat close together at the 2017 Golden Globes. In fact, Thornton had to brush past Dern as he collected his Best Actor in a Television Series award for “Goliath.”

Angelina Jolie is undoubtedly the most high-profile of Billy Bob Thornton’s five ex-wives. The pair famously engaged in several strange displays of public affection after marrying in 2000 — while the latter was still technically in a relationship with Laura Dern. Who can forget the “Gone in 60 Seconds” premiere where they both sported lockets containing a single drop of each other’s blood, for example? There’s a reason Billy Bob Thornton is known for being Angelina Jolie’s weirdest ex.

The A-list couple burned brightly but quickly, however, heading for the divorce courts in 2003, just four years after they first met while shooting “Pushing Tin.” One might have expected, therefore, for such an intense relationship to have ended acrimoniously. But it appears as though the pair simply realized they were better off as friends. In fact, they’re arguably more complimentary about each other now than when betrothed.

“I still love him dearly and think the world of him and I’m proud to have been his wife for a time,” Jolie revealed in a 2008 chat with Entertainment Weekly (via E! News). Four years later, the “Tomb Raider” star two decades Thornton’s junior, agreed to pen the foreword for his memoir, “The Billy Bob Tapes: A Cave Full of Ghosts.” “The world would certainly be a hell of a lot duller if that man weren’t in it,” she wrote. “He has an unmatchable wit and can make you laugh until your face hurts.”