19-05-2025
Michelle Williams makes heartbreaking comments about Heath Ledger as she gets emotional over him
Michelle Williams made a comment about the late Heath Ledger on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast.
The rare comment about the 10 Things I Hate About You star comes after the Dawson's Creek alum, 44, said that her and Heath's daughter Matilda Ledger, 19, keeps his memory alive.
That segued into a discussion about Heath's lasting impact.
'I feel obligated to say that I knew him a little bit when he was getting sober, and I don't know that I've ever fallen in love with somebody so quickly,' Michelle said.
Dax shared his thoughts, saying, 'This is one of the most special boys I've ever met, and I can feel the weight of the world on him in a very special way that kind of broke my heart,' he said. 'I was very, very sad, and I thought he was just so special.'
Williams got emotional as she said, '[He was] so special, so special,' she whispered. 'Thank God there's Matilda.'
Shepard then described Ledger as 'this heart here that's just leaking out everywhere,' and Williams agreed, saying, 'Yeah, an incredible sensitivity.'
Heath and Michelle met on the set of Brokeback Mountain in 2004 and welcomed daughter Matilda in October 2005.
'We had a baby. But I suppose maybe it's a good thing about being young is that you don't have so much life experience that you can contextualize things,' Williams added on Monday's podcast episode.
'So you're really just going with the flow.'
The couple broke up in October 2007 and three months later, Ledger died of an accidental drug overdose. He was 28.
It wasn't until 2016 that Williams publicly commented on Ledger's death and raising Matilda without him.
'In all honesty, for pretty much everything else, I feel like I'm a believer in not fighting circumstances, accepting where you are and where you've been. In pretty much all senses but one,' she told Porter magazine in 2016.
'I would be able to go totally down that line of thinking were it not for Matilda not having her dad. You know, that's just something that doesn't … I mean, it just won't ever be right.'
That segued into a discussion about Heath's lasting impact. 'I feel obligated to say that I knew him a little bit when he was getting sober, and I don't know that I've ever fallen in love with somebody so quickly,' Michelle said. Seen here on the set of A Place in Hell in 2025
Dax shared his thoughts, saying, 'This is one of the most special boys I've ever met, and I can feel the weight of the world on him in a very special way that kind of broke my heart,' he said. Heath seen here in 2005
And while Matilda didn't grow up with her dad she has had a strong and consistent father figure in her life – actor Jeremy Strong.
'Matilda didn't grow up with her father but she grew up with her Jeremy,' Williams said in 2022.
'[She] was changed by [Strong's] ability to play as though his life depended on it, because hers did,' she said.
'Jeremy was serious enough to hold the weight of a child's broken heart and sensitive enough to understand how to approach her through play and games and silliness.'
In March, Michelle welcomed her fourth child – and third with husband Thomas Kail.
A source said: 'They couldn't be happier to expand their family, and Matilda has been doting on her younger siblings.'
Michelle and Thomas got engaged in 2019 after working together on Fosse/Verdon and got married in March 2020.
They have son Hart, four, who they welcomed in June 2020 and another baby who joined the family in 2022.
After Heath died, Michelle wasn't linked to anyone romantically for years.
And then, in 2018 she ran off and secretly married musician Phil Elverum.
Less than a year later, they split up and in December 2019 she got engaged to theater director Thomas Kail.
Elsewhere in the podcast she talked about being a working mom, saying that her 'best day with my children is better than my best day at work.'
'Kids are such great life checkers. They force you to put your best self in front of them,' the mom of four said.
'You can't abdicate your life and your work and your own desires, but you do have to put them in check and figure out which master you're gonna serve.'
'Because the truth is, if work is going well, somebody else is taking care of the kids, and if you're in a high point with your kids, the work is shoved to the side,' she added.
'You can't be equally good at them at the exact same time, and you have to allow for that give and take, but then also replenish the other things.
