Relationships
Lauren Graham’s Dating History: Her Past Romance With ‘Parenthood’ Costar Peter Krause & More
To many fans around the world, Lauren Graham is synonymous with their favorite Gilmore Girls character, Lorelai Gilmore. And they might actually have more in common than we originally thought.
The actress has previously spoken about her similarities with Lorelai, yet it wasn’t until her appearance on Call Her Daddy that she spilled the beans about her intertwined love life with the fictional persona. Opening up to Alex Cooper, Graham forewent her usual private nature to give the Unwell owner all the intel.
Not just talking about her repertoire, the 58-year-old gave some insight into her dating life. She acknowledged that her private nature has stopped her from always discussing the topic. “It always feels weird to be asked, and many times I was lying because it such a strange thing to talk about — which I still mainly don’t talk about,” she revealed. “[Dating is] something that you don’t know what’s going to happen. I think some people are built for it, some people don’t find it personally vulnerable. And it was also, I have to say, it wasn’t my focus at the time, so it felt strange. Like, I’m a working person, and I’m in a career, and I don’t know. It just was odd.”
Scroll down to learn more about the actress’ relationship history.
When did Lauren Graham & Peter Krause date?
Graham’s longest relationship was with her Parenthood costar, Peter Krause. The two actors, who played siblings Sarah and Adam Braverman, dated for 11 years. He notably guest-starred in an episode of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life as a Park Ranger.
Prashant Gupta / Netflix / Everett Collection
They were in a relationship from 2010 to 2021. News of their breakup wasn’t public information until a year later in 2022. She’s never confirmed why they split, but she has alluded to the fact that they didn’t always see eye-to-eye.
Not speaking about Krause directly, she did answer Cooper’s question about how she bonded with the Parenthood cast. “Predominantly, it was the most easy filming experience which — [you] bond to some degree no matter what — but when something’s easy and you just have a lot of time to sit around and chit chat, that’s so fun. How lucky were we that we got to make this show where it was a very different way of working,” she said.
She continued, “And that’s the one thing you cannot predict when you go in is, ‘Are we gonna grow and change and have values that keep aligning?’ And the only way you have that is by talking about it, being open about it, being honest about it… You can see things crumble when people did, people change. People change and you don’t know.”
In her book Have I Told You This Already? Stories I Don’t Want to Forget to Remember, Graham opened up about her split from Krause without explicitly naming him. “When my relationship of almost 12 years ended last year, I went into a sort of shock I’d never experienced before,” she wrote. “I’d be doing normal things like driving to the store, or putting in a load of laundry, but also have the sensation of watching myself doing these things from a distance.”
Graham admitted that she felt like she was “moving in slow motion” after the breakup. “It was as if I’d spent a long time watching a movie with ominous background music, not noticing, until it finally swelled to a level I couldn’t ignore,” she added, “And none of these metaphors were quite accurate.”
Who did Lauren Graham date from Gilmore Girls?
Graham definitely dated some of her onscreen boyfriends, but she wasn’t exactly crystal clear about who her past beaus have been. Jokingly talking about her love life, she said on Call Her Daddy, “Yes, and dating is a real big word for some of the experiences.” Graham admitted, “But, you know, you’re there 14, 15 hours. Who else are you going to meet?”
The actress has never revealed this snippet of information before, and she wasn’t down to actually say the names of any of the costars she dated. Yet, Lorelai’s lineup wasn’t too extensive. Throughout the seven seasons, she had the most intense romantic connections with Christopher Hayden (David Sutcliffe), who was Rory’s (Alexis Bledel) dad, and Luke Danes (Scott Patterson). Although she clarified that she never dated Patterson. (But, don’t worry, Luke is “for sure” her favorite when it comes to Lorelai.) Other fictional boyfriends were Max Medina (Scott Cohen), Jason Stiles (Chris Eigeman), Alex Lesman (Billy Burke), and Peyton Sanders (Jon Hamm).
Has Lauren Graham ever been married?
No. Graham wasn’t interested in a typical “timeline” when she was younger. However, as of recently, the actress has become more interested in a schedule of sorts. “I think it’s interesting because I did not have a timeline,” Graham confessed. “But now I’m like obsessed with timeline, in a way that I think is really positive because I’m now at an age where I want to be planning what else I would like in my life. I want to be thinking really actively about that.”
When she was younger, Graham assumed everything “happened just organically.” Throughout the years, she realized that life doesn’t always work that way.
