Actress Cristin Milioti will always be strongly associated with romance because so many of her most iconic roles are all about big love. Whether she’s falling for Andy Samberg in Palm Springs over and over or arriving as the long-anticipated mother of How I Met Your Mother, she is someone’s perfect half.
But offscreen, Milioti keeps her romances largely to herself.
While promoting Palm Springs in July 2020, Milioti told Vulture that though her personal life may be private, it is tied to how she thinks about her very public career. She shared that in 2016, she was working on a pilot that didn’t get picked up. Around the same time, she had “gone through some things in my personal life that were really sad and eye-opening, and sort of ego-shattering.”
She continued, “I had a moment of waking up and being like, ‘Wow, we’ve tried the same thing over and over and over again for years. What if we tried something else?’”
After that, Milioti decided to be less controlling about what was next and even started reading some self-help books.
“I say all this, and I’m cringing a little bit. It’s hard for me to talk about these things because I believe them very deeply, but also I come from New Jersey,” she joked. “I’ll read these books that are like, ‘You’ve got to learn to love yourself before you can love anyone else,’ and I’m like ‘Are you fucking kidding me? Get back!’”
Here’s what is known about Cristin Milioti’s dating life.
Jesse Hooker
In 2013, Milioti did tell The New York Times that she was dating Jesse Hooker, who is the son of Lorna Luft and grandson of Judy Garland. With that family, Hooker is also an actor, but he makes furniture as well. The NYT asked about engagement rumors, which she denied.
“No, I swear to you I’m telling the truth! My boyfriend’s going to get such a kick out of that,” the star said. “But we’re very happy.”
In a 2014 interview with the Hollywood Reporter to promote her short-lived sitcom A to Z, the publication asked her about the perfect date outfit for a night with Hooker.
“Well, I’d probably wear denim-on-denim,”she said, laughing. “No, I would be wearing something in this vein (looks at dress) but probably in flats instead of heels. It would either involve the beach—and you know what, I’ve never been to Paris, so I would love to walk hand-in-hand in Paris but also with a glass of champagne on the streets. I would love that.”
She offered a little more information after saying she stays off social media and would never meet a potential partner through any platform.
“No, I’ve been in a relationship for five years, and we were introduce through a mutual friend,” she explained.
There were no reports about when or why they might have broken up—if indeed they have. Milioti actually does have an Instagram account now, but she does not follow Hooker and only has three posts up currently, mostly promoting her new HBO show, The Penguin.
Aimée Lutkin is the weekend editor at ELLE.com. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire and more. Her first book, The Lonely Hunter, will be released by Dial Press in February 2022.