They could be any loved-up couple celebrating the joy of new romance with an impromptu selfie to share on Instagram.
She gazes up into the camera with a dazzling smile, while he wraps her in an embrace, nuzzling her blonde hair.
But as her millions of fans know, nothing is quite so simple in the complicated, unconventional and rather topsy-turvy love life of best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert.
Three years ago Elizabeth Gilbert stunned her followers by leaving her second husband of ten years, Jose Nunes (left) — the handsome Brazilian ‘Felipe’ whom she fell in love with at the end of her Eat Pray Love travels — for a woman, her gay best friend Rayya Elias
Ever since she set off on a solo voyage of self-discovery across the world following the collapse of her first marriage 15 years ago — her 2006 memoir Eat Pray Love became a publishing phenomenon selling more than 12 million copies — Gilbert has continued to surprise her readers with myriad twists and turns.
Three years ago she stunned her followers by leaving her second husband of ten years, Jose Nunes — the handsome Brazilian ‘Felipe’ whom she fell in love with at the end of her Eat Pray Love travels — for a woman, her gay best friend Rayya Elias.
Now, 15 months after her lover’s tragic death from cancer at the age of 57, Elizabeth Gilbert has fallen in love again — this time with a man. The object of her affections is British photographer Simon MacArthur, 60, who was for years one of Rayya’s closest friends and a former flatmate.
Indeed, it was Bristol-born Mr MacArthur who took one of the last poignant photographs of Elizabeth and Rayya together — a beautiful black-and-white portrait of the couple — before the Syrian born-musician and documentary maker passed away.
Now, 15 months after the tragic death of Elias (right) from cancer at the age of 57, Elizabeth Gilbert has fallen in love again — this time with a man
But this week in an Instagram post, Miss Gilbert, 49, introduced her new love to the world with the following words: ‘Please meet my sweetheart, Mr Simon MacArthur. He’s a photographer from the UK. He’s a beautiful man who has been a friend of mine for years.’
She continues: ‘Even more touchingly, Simon was a beloved friend of Rayya’s for decades. They lived in London together over 30 years ago, and they adored each other like siblings. This, as you can imagine, means the world to me. Of late, Simon and I have found our way into each other’s arms. And now here we are, and his heart has been such a warm place for me to land.
‘I share this news publicly, despite the fact our love story is so new and young and tender, for a few reasons. For one thing I just want to say: If you see me walking around with a tall, handsome man on my arm, don’t be buggin’. Just know that your girl is happy and following her heart.’
As for Mr MacArthur, who is believed to have recently split from his American wife, his Instagram reply to a surprised friend’s query ‘Really?’ suggests that he is as stunned as Miss Gilbert’s fans by this sudden and unexpected turn of events.
‘I hardly know where to begin. Liz and I have been friends for a couple of years. A few months ago the stars seemed to align. We were both out of relationships, both believing that we were destined to be alone for the rest of our lives,’ he writes.
‘But Liz has had strong feelings for me for years and kept those under wraps. A few weeks ago she revealed them to me and we’ve found an incredible love here … We’re madly in love and planning our future together so, watch this space. We’re in the throes of introducing all our friends to each other.’
The object of Elizabeth Gilbert’s affections is British photographer Simon MacArthur, 60, who was for years one of Rayya’s closest friends and a former flatmate
Born in Claverham, Bristol, New York-based documentary photographer and ‘environmental portraitist’ Mr MacArthur describes himself on his website as ‘a globetrotter, intensely curious about the way the world works and how best to pass on that curiosity to others — always looking for what’s around the next corner’.
He continues: ‘A friend told me my photos have all the hallmarks of a humanist. I think it fits. I am an ardent animal rights advocate and avid scuba diver, campaigning for the end of the use of plastics that are devastating oceanic life.’
A graduate of Gwent College of Art and Design in Newport, South Wales, he has travelled the world capturing arresting images of people and nature in black and white. His subjects range from Welsh dry dock welders to fishermen in Mombasa.
‘Why do I shoot solely in monochrome? The answer is because I want my work stripped bare of everything but cause and emotion,’ he writes. ‘As an emotive human being, I need to feel what I’m shooting, to feel as though I’m almost an integral part of everything I shoot … ideally, interacting with my subject, in their skin.’
As for Miss Gilbert, in her Instagram post presenting her new sweetheart, she offers the following advice to others mourning a loved one — it’s OK to fall in love and feel like a ‘dumb and crazy and excited and insecure’ 16-year-old again in middle age.
‘Do not let your gorgeous loyalty to the deceased stop you from experiencing the marvels and terrors of your short, mortal, precious life. It’s OK to live, and to love.’
Born in Claverham, Bristol, New York-based documentary photographer and ‘environmental portraitist’ Mr MacArthur (left) describes himself on his website as ‘a globetrotter, intensely curious about the way the world works in how best to pass on that curiosity to others — always looking for what’s around the next corner’
Certainly the intertwined lives of these three New Yorkers — who for years were nothing more than just good friends — would make a remarkable third memoir for Gilbert, whose follow-up to Eat Pray Love was called Committed and explored her ambivalence towards marriage.
You could argue it has all the hallmarks of another Hollywood blockbuster, sequel perhaps to the 2010 film adaptation of Gilbert’s bestseller (it’s been translated into 30 languages) starring Julia Roberts as Gilbert and Spanish actor Javier Bardem as ‘Felipe’.
But will this new romance give Elizabeth Gilbert’s fans the neat happy ending they thought she’d found with Brazilian gem trader Jose Nunes, settling down to married life in a $1 million dollar Italianate Victorian mini-estate in the artsy, rural village of Frenchtown, New Jersey? For Gilbert’s voyage of self-discovery captured the zeitgeist. Described as ‘a Shirley Valentine for the yoga and quinoa generation’ and compared to Sex And The City’s Carrie Bradshaw ‘cut loose from New York’, Gilbert’s story struck a chord with women dreaming of escape.
Some followed in her exotic footsteps, enjoying pizza in Italy (Eat), finding spiritual enlightenment in Indian ashrams (Pray) before travelling on to Indonesia hopefully to fall into the arms of their own sexy ‘Felipe’ under the Banyan trees of Bali (Love).
Raised on a Christmas tree farm in Connecticut, Gilbert was a moderately successful writer when, aged 34 and reeling from a painful divorce, she set off on her solo odyssey across three continents to try to make sense of her life.
Gilbert and Elias held a non-legally binding commitment ceremony in New York prior to her death. Gilbert and Elias had been best friends for years but their relationship turned romantic after the cancer diagnosis
Writing on the tenth anniversary of the bestseller which turned her into a multi-millionaire, Miss Gilbert wrote: ‘The woman who went on this trip was exceedingly lucky …Who has 12 free months to spare, just to kick around the globe? Who has the freedom or the money?’
She continued: ‘One of the reasons I was so free that year was because I was such a mess. It was easy for me to leave everything behind because I didn’t have much to leave behind.
‘I had no property because I’d lost it all in my divorce. I had no romantic relationships, because I’d exploded them. I had no job because I’d quit. Everything was in turmoil, everything was in flux and I was so bloody sad.’
Reflecting on the tangled love life which triggered the odyssey, Gilbert wrote in 2015 with disarming honesty about her past romantic failings, under the heading Confessions Of A Seduction Addict.
‘Seduction was never a casual sport for me; it was more like a heist, adrenalising and urgent. I would plan the heist for months, scouting out the target, looking for unguarded entries,’ she wrote.
‘Then I would break into his deepest vault, steal all the emotional currency and spend it on myself. If the man was already involved in a committed relationship, I knew that I didn’t need to be prettier or better than his existing girlfriend; I just needed to be different.
Gilbert announced in September 2016 that her marriage was over and that she’d found love with her best friend of 17 years —Rayya Elias — a musician, writer, film maker, recovered drug addict, ex-punk rocker and former hairdresser whom she’d first met when Elias staged an ‘intervention’ on Gilbert’s hair (Above: the pair pictured together in 2014)
‘The trick was to study the other woman and to become her opposite, thereby positioning myself to this man as a sparkling alternative to his regular life.’
Although Miss Gilbert set off on her voyage, swearing she will ‘never, ever, under any circumstance, marry again’, in 2007 she did marry her exotic, older lover ‘Felipe’, Jose Nunes.
Together they set up an Asian imports emporium in New York called Two Buttons, and for ten years the glamorous couple seemed blissfully happy, living in Frenchtown’s most expensive house — built for New Jersey’s first native-born governor. ‘My marriage has been pretty f****** nice. Pretty steady,’ she said shortly before their shock break-up.
‘I always think about how, at the very beginning, he said: “Can you please be gentle with me?”, and I remember thinking: “You, sir, have come to the right place.” ’
In a long Facebook message to her fans, Gilbert announced in September 2016 that her marriage was over and that she’d found love with her best friend of 17 years —Rayya Elias — a musician, writer, film maker, recovered drug addict, ex-punk rocker and former hairdresser whom she’d first met when Elias staged an ‘intervention’ on Gilbert’s hair.
‘Rayya and I are together. I love her and she loves me,’ wrote Gilbert, adding that she realised the depth of her feeling for Rayya only when her best friend was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer.
‘Something happened to my heart and mind in the days and weeks following Rayya’s diagnosis,’ she continued. ‘Death — or the prospect of death — has a way of clearing away everything that is not real and, in that stark and utter realness, I was faced with this truth: I do not merely love Rayya; I am in love with Rayya. And I have no more time for denying that truth.’
Jose Nunes has never spoken of his divorce from Gilbert. Their Frenchtown mansion was listed for sale for $999,000 dollars, the New York shop sold and last October the couple’s two-bedroom apartment on a Wellness resort in Miami, Florida was listed for sale for $2.3 million dollars.
In an interview with a lesbian magazine about inspiring same-sex couples, Rayya Elias revealed she and Gilbert were ‘very happily not married’ but had gone through a non-legally-binding ceremony of their commitment to one another.
Describing their ‘slow burn of passion’ after ‘almost two decades of the deepest foundational friendship you could ever imagine’, Rayya said: ‘It took a long time. Then I was diagnosed with cancer, and that did it. There was no more time to waste. The truth had to be spoken.’
After Rayya’s death in January 2018, Elizabeth Gilbert posted this tribute: ‘She was my love, my heart, my best friend, my teacher, my rebel, my angel, my protector, my challenger, my partner, my muse, my wizard, my surprise, my gift, my comet, my liberator, my rock star … and my baby.
‘I loved you so much, Rayya. Thank you for letting me walk with you right to the edge of the river. It has been the greatest honour of my life. I would tell you to rest in peace, but I know you always found peace boring. May you rest in excitement. I will always love you.’
Today, a happy new chapter now appears to be opening for Elizabeth Gilbert — with the friend of the late best friend whom they both loved.
No doubt, her fans will be eagerly awaiting her next surprise.