February 18, 2010: David did not become her

Isabella Rossellini reveals she needed therapy after breakup from David Lynch.

by Jeffrey Cottrill

You'd think Isabella Rossellini would be tough enough to handle anything after starring in then-husband David Lynch's bizarre, edgy 1986 film Blue Velvet. But the veteran Italian actor has admitted in a recent interview that her 1991 split from Lynch was traumatic enough to send her to counseling.

"David was the big love of my life," Rossellini, 57, told Berlin weekly magazine Die Zeit, which published the interview today. "And I believed that he loved me the same way, but obviously I was mistaken. All my instincts told me we were a happy couple, but we weren't."

Lynch and Rossellini were a couple from 1987 to 1991. They began dating around the time Lynch divorced his second wife, Mary Fisk, and Rossellini divorced her second husband, Jonathan Wiedemann.

"I spoke [afterwards] with other women who had been through the same thing. And I took therapy," Rossellini added in the interview. "But the thing that helped me the most was time."

Lynch wasn't the first acclaimed and controversial American film director that Rossellini had become involved with. She had previously been married to Martin Scorsese for three years. She also had a relationship with actor Gary Oldman a few years after breaking up with Lynch. She has a daughter with Wiedemann, fashion model Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann, now 26.

Isabella Rossellini is the daughter of Italian neo-realist director Roberto Rossellini and Swedish-American movie icon Ingrid Bergman. In addition to acting, she modeled for Lancôme for 14 years and has written three books. Her other film credits include Lynch's Wild at Heart, as well as Death Becomes Her, Immortal Beloved, Big Night, and The Saddest Music in the World.

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• How to Quiet Your Mind

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