{"id":2426461,"date":"2026-05-21T14:04:48","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T14:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2426461"},"modified":"2026-05-21T14:04:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T14:04:48","slug":"rumer-willis-reflects-on-brutal-relationship-with-ex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/rumer-willis-reflects-on-brutal-relationship-with-ex\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumer Willis Reflects on \u2018Brutal\u2019 Relationship With Ex"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Rumer Willis<\/strong><\/a>\u2019 relationship with her daughter\u2019s father wasn\u2019t the best, but it taught her an important lesson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so grateful in a lot of ways because there are things that I learned,\u201d Willis, 37, said on the Monday, May 18, episode of stylist Maeve Reilly<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cThe Inside Edit\u201d podcast<\/a>. \u201cEven though it was one of the most brutal things that I\u2019ve ever had to do, there are things that now, going into my next relationship, that I have a totally different set of standards and a different thing that I\u2019m looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cI don\u2019t want to just be with anybody. I don\u2019t want to just have a partner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Willis and ex-boyfriend Derek Richard Thomas<\/strong> started dating in 2022. They welcomed daughter<\/a> Louetta in April 2023. By August 2024, Willis confirmed that she and Thomas, 31, had split by telling fans that she was \u201csingle-moming it and coparenting\u201d<\/a> in a social media statement.<\/p>\n

On Monday\u2019s podcast episode, Willis recalled attending Reilly\u2019s April 2024 wedding to Zach Quittman<\/strong>, explaining that watching the nuptials became a \u201chuge reckoning\u201d for her.<\/p>\n

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\n Related: <\/span>Rumer Willis and Derek Richard Thomas\u2019 Relationship Timeline<\/span><\/a>
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\n\t\t\tRumer Willis and musician Derek Richard Thomas debuted their romance nearly one month before announcing they were expecting their first child. The twosome posed for a series of photos together, shared via Instagram in November 2022, in which the guitarist kissed the 90210 alum\u2019s cheek. \u201c\u2665\ufe0f\ud83e\udd9e\ud83d\udc1e\ud83e\udeb1\ud83e\udda7\u2665\ufe0f,\u201d Willis and Thomas captioned their joint social media upload. [\u2026]\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI heard your vows, and I just realized that the situation I was in was never going to look like that, no matter how much effort I put in,\u201d Willis recalled. \u201cI was watching you guys, just weeping, holding my child. I just thought, I need to have more value for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cI need to go and leave, no matter how scared I am and find something that looks like this because I want that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Willis noted on Monday that she\u2019s \u201cjust starting to feel back in my power\u201d after splitting from Thomas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say in the last eight months of feeling kind of confident and feeling back into myself after a really challenging relationship,\u201d she continued. \u201cI try not to speak negatively, but also my truth is that it was really brutal and challenging. I\u2019m so proud of myself.<\/p>\n

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