Musician and actress Chynna Phillips admitted that her strong faith almost “ruptured” her marriage with actor Billy Baldwin. She says she and Baldwin recently endured “big challenges” in their relationship, sharing that the past several years have been particularly trying. She told her followers in a YouTube video posted to her channel, “It’s a primary relationship, and when that relationship starts to feel ruptured or damaged, or it starts to feel uneasy, that can be terrifying.”
Phillips shared before emphatically declaring the couple has an “awesome” marriage, “I’ve been with Billy for 32 years. But we definitely had the hardest couple of years of our lives. These past couple of years have been a real struggle. And I think it’s because, you know, I just took the deep dive into Jesus, and I think that he didn’t quite know what to do with that because it was kind of all Jesus, all the time.”
In addition to her faith causing a rift, a “power struggle” developed between the two. She said, “I know that the Bible says that we’re supposed to submit, and they’re the head, and that’s all true. But it also says that the man is supposed to treat the wife like the church and all of that. So I think that I was just struggling with, like, ‘Dude, I am not 23 years old anymore. I’m growing, I’m changing, I’m not the same person I was 30 years ago. And I refuse to have the same marriage we had 30 years ago. It’s time for us to mature and grow.'”
The couple met when Phillips was 23 and married a few years later, in 1995. At one point during the video, Phillips disclosed that she and Baldwin had split up for six months, and he lived away from their home. Phillips did not specify when, although she did file for divorce in 2010, only to withdraw the papers shortly after. She said of Baldwin’s willingness to evolve their marriage, “Billy was on board. But I think that, you know, for him, it was also like, ‘Well, you’re not into the things that I’m into. You’re not into politics, you’re not into wrestling, you’re not into the philanthropy thing that I do.'”
Phillips explained, “We did a couple of things together, but we’ve never really found that one thing that the two of us can latch on to and do together as a team. And so I’m praying in 2024 that we’re going to find that one thing that the two of us can do together that feels really fulfilling and that is greater than us. It’s bigger than just date night or going on some trip. We really hope to find something that we can do in philanthropy that is going to help other people. That’s a beautiful goal that we have.”
At 60, Billy is the second-youngest son of the four Baldwin brothers, also including Alec, Daniel and Stephen.