Dina Eastwood Feared She Ended Her Marriage With Clint Eastwood After Helping Crash His Car

Actor Clint Eastwood separated from his wife of 17 years Dina Eastwood in 2014. The couple shares one daughter, and Dina asserted their divorce was unexpected. However, there was one mistake she made that she felt doomed their marriage much earlier.

Dina Eastwood was terrified of Clint Eastwood after an acquaintance of hers crashed his car

When the two were together, Dina typically spoke fondly about her relationship with the Oscar-winner. The pair first met while Dina was still working as a news anchor. According to an interview Eastwood did with Carmel, they hit it off instantly. Their chemistry was so apparent that an acquaintance of Dina’s even joked about seeing marriage in their future.

“So anyway, we got along really well and I guess we flirted a little bit because she took the film back to KSBW and one of her associates said, ‘You’re going to marry him.’ Then we were attending a function out at Spanish Bay and [one of the hosts] said, ‘Do you mind sitting with Dina Ruiz?’ I said, ‘No! Not at all!’ We ended up holding hands and doing all that kind of nonsense and then we started dating and we’re still dating,” Eastwood said.

They married in 1996, and according to Dina, enjoyed a very easy and non-confrontational relationship after exchanging wedding vows.

“There was no taming to be done!” she once told Daily Beast. “We’ve had a zero-resistance relationship—no drama. We were naturally drawn to each other and have never broken up or had affairs.”

At the time, the closest Dina came to fretting over their relationship was a mishap she had with Eastwood’s car. Dina became a huge fan of the band Overtone, who was just beginning to make a name for themselves back then. She was so taken by the group that she actively tried supporting their career by helping them secure a marriage. While taking a trip with the band, Dina left Eastwood’s Mercedes running in a parking lot. A band member hopped into the car to take a picture, and ended up accidentally crashing the vehicle. Dina was shaken by what the accident might’ve meant for her marriage with the Dirty Harry star.

“I was terrified of Clint at that point,” she said. “I thought my marriage was over. I called him and calmly explained I’d be on the next flight home and would call the whole Overtone thing off, but he was great. He had it towed and had his production company bring us another rental. That’s how sweet the guy is.”

Dina Eastwood never thought she and Clint Eastwood would divorce

Although the minor car crash didn’t affect their marriage, eventually their 17-year-long relationship did come to an end.

“I never thought it would happen to me. Nobody does,” she once said according to ABC News.

She also confided that she was having a very difficult time going through the divorce, crying for days at a time. She figured the separation would be a somewhat smoother process, but she was surprised by how hard it turned out to be.

“Stuff started happening in the spring that threw me for a loop. I had no clue that there would ever be any kind of turbulence or bizarre things occur. I thought it would just be really cool, that we’d live in the same town and go to the same place to have a drink. I didn’t get it,” Dina said.

Dina further asserted that a small part of her might’ve been hoping for a reconciliation with Eastwood.

“I think maybe a part of me was holding out, like ‘What are we doing here?’ Then there have been some definite signs that we’re not going to get back together so let’s move on amicably is my opinion, but I think there is a mental chokehold on you when you don’t have something in place that shows you are definitely apart,” she said.

However, the divorce didn’t change how Dina felt about the Rawhide actor as a person.

“He’s lovely, he hasn’t done much. It’s other people around him have done things that have blown me away and again my future ex-husband has done nothing [wrong],” she said. “He’s probably the sweetest guy I’ve ever met. He is the sweetest, he is a loving, kind, low-key person so my intuition was still great on marrying a good person.”