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Renée Zellweger believes her romance with Ant Anstead was serendipitous.
When asked by Harper’s Bazaar if she thinks Anstead “has somehow been a gift” from her publicist pal Nanci Ryder (who died in 2020), the actress replied, “Yeah, we do joke about that.”
“She’s always doing her best. It made me smile,” she added. “It made me smile to think on this, yeah, the serendipity of it all.”
Zellweger, 52, and Anstead, 42, have been dating since summer 2021 after meeting on the set of “Celebrity IOU: Joyride.”
The Discovery+ series, hosted by the car guru, gives stars the opportunity to gift “automotive masterpieces” to special people in their lives.
Ryder, a famous Hollywood publicist and PR agency exec, died in June 2020 after a long battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). She was 67.
Following her friend’s death, Zellweger wanted to do something special for twin brothers Jerome and Jerald Cowan – the nurses who cared for Ryder in her last years of life – so she jumped at the opportunity to take part in “Celebrity IOU: Joyride.”
Jerome received a 1969 Oldsmobile Cutlass and Jerald got a vintage Bronco, while Zellweger walked away with a new love interest.
Later in the interview, the “Judy” star also joked about how different she and Anstead are when it comes to social media and communication.
While Zellweger leads a typically private lifestyle, the “Wheeler Dealers” co-host is constantly sharing updates on his life via Twitter and Instagram.
“I don’t look at my phone sometimes until six o’clock at night,” she shared.
News of Anstead and Zellweger’s relationship broke mere days after the motor specialist finalized his divorce from “Flip or Flop” star Christina Haack, 38, with whom he shares 2-year-old son Hudson.
Anstead is also dad to teenagers Amelie and Archie from his first marriage to a woman named Louise.
Over the years, Zellweger has dated stars like Jim Carrey, Jack White and Bradley Cooper, and she was briefly married to Kenny Chesney back in 2005.
Though she and Anstead initially tried to play coy about their romance, the frequent PDA-packed paparazzi pics blew their cover. They eventually went Instagram-official (on his part) in August 2021.
The love birds then took a “magical” trip to New Orleans in October and spent Thanksgiving together with Hudson the following month.
Harper’s Bazaar noted that Zellweger is reportedly renting a house in Laguna Beach, Calif., where Anstead lives, but she did comment further on the matter.
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