Jack Black Was So Shy About Asking His Wife Out, It Took 15 Years
Love is in the air for Valentine’s Day, marking the perfect occasion to look at celebrity relationships. Jack Black and his wife Tanya Haden have been married for nearly 15 years, and they generally keep their private life out of the spotlight.
But their love story has an interesting sprinkle of serendipity in it. Long before they dated and tied the knot, the Jumanji star and Haden knew each other before they ever got together. As it happened, Black wound up getting in his own way.
Who is Jack Black’s wife, Tanya Haden?
Jack Black’s wife Tanya Haden grew up in California but was born in New York. She’s an accomplished musician with a fine arts degree in film and animation but is known for her work as a cellist and vocalist. Fun fact: Haden voiced a smitten bunny cheering on Po, the dragon warrior in 2008’s Kung Fu Panda.
Haden is also one-third of the Haden Triplets, a trio comprised of her and her two musically-inclined sisters. Their father, late jazz artist Charlie Haden, exposed them to a world of musical genres.
Together, the sisters’ backgrounds are in folk, jazz, and rock, and they released their first album on Jack White’s label in 2014. The triplets’ follow-up dropped in January 2020.
Occasionally, Haden appears in Black’s videos for his Jablinski Games YouTube channel. She and Black married in 2006 and have two sons, Thomas and Samuel.
Jack Black first met his wife in high school
Black and Haden first encountered one another as teenagers at Crossroads School, a high school for performing arts and science. But Black was too timid to ask her out at the time. According to the Irish Examiner, Black admitted it to The Sun for a “What I Wish I’d Known at 18” piece.
“I wish I’d had more courage to ask out Tanya Haden, the woman who eventually became my wife. We met at school at 18 – and I wasted 15 years waiting for my chance,” he told The Sun.
“She was everything I could wish for. Talented, beautiful and a wonderful performer on stage. She was part of a band called The Haden Triplets. We first worked together on a student film but we did not date,” Black added.
He also shared that he used to watch Haden and her sisters perform in local venues, often watching from the shadows before darting off. They would run into each other here and there over the years but didn’t connect romantically until 2005.
Black believes he found his soul mate in Haden
Before settling down with Haden, Black dated Laura Kightlinger for nearly 10 years. He and his eventual wife reconnected months after that break-up.
When the pair first started dating, Black once warmly referred to Haden as his soul mate in a 2005 interview with Howard Stern. He explained to the radio host how “his new girlfriend was always ‘mysterious and fantastical’ to him when he was admiring her from afar, and that she has become his soul mate.”
