At long last, Hugh Jackman and his former costar turned paramour Sutton Foster have made their romance red-carpet official. The two Tony winners posed together at the Los Angeles premiere of Jackman’s upcoming film Song Sung Blue on Sunday, with Jackman in a simple black suit and Foster wearing a black Galvan V-neck slip dress. He stars in the film as Mike Sardinia, one half of a Milwaukee-based Neil Diamond cover band called Lightning & Thunder; the other half is his wife, Claire, played by Kate Hudson.
In Song Sung Blue, Jackman and Hudson sport some serious statement wigs as they fall head over heels, brought together by their shared love of singing and their dedication to—or obsession with—the art of entertainment. A lot of tragic stuff also happens in Song Sung Blue, but the real point is this: In a lot of ways, Mike and Claire’s love story looks an awful lot like Jackman and Foster’s.
While Jackman and Foster have only been publicly dating for about 10 months, they’ve been acquainted with each other since the early 2000s. Both are members of the greater Broadway community; as People points out, Jackman snapped a photo with Foster during her Tony-winning, star-making run as the titular ’20s flapper in Thoroughly Modern Millie. One year later, Jackman would host the Tonys for the first time; a year after that, he’d host again, and also win his own leading-actor-in-a-musical trophy for playing Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz. As a theater luminary herself, Foster must have been aware of Jackman’s electrifying run as Tonys emcee—he did it three years in a row—particularly the year he also performed a number from The Boy From Oz in a cheetah-print button-down and impossibly tight gold pants. In any case, it’s clear they both have greasepaint roaring through their veins.
By the time they’d met, Jackman had already been a married man for years, having wed Australian actor and producer Deborra-Lee Furness in 1996. Foster has had a more tumultuous romantic history. She was married to fellow actor Christian Borle, who would go on to win his own Tony awards, from 2006 to 2009; when she won her second Tony in 2011 for playing another grande dame of musical theater, Reno Sweeney, in a revival of Anything Goes, she famously thanked her dresser as well as her boyfriend at the time, actor Bobby Cannavale. (Like Foster, Cannavale would eventually find love with an Australian—Rose Byrne.) Jackman and Foster remained friendly through this time—even dancing together when Jackman hosted the Tonys a fourth time in 2014—but their relationship was not romantic.
Then came The Music Man, the critically acclaimed Broadway revival starring Foster and Jackman that was announced in March 2019 and originally set to open in October 2020. When rehearsals for the revival began, Jackman was still married to Furness, with whom he shares two children, Oscar and Ava. Foster, meanwhile, had married screenwriter Ted Griffin in 2014 and adopted a baby girl, Emily, with him in 2017. But due to the pandemic and subsequent Broadway shutdown, the revival was put on hold until 2022.
When rehearsals started again, Jackman praised Foster’s immense talent in a story about the show in Vanity Fair. “She can learn a new dance in three hours, and she’s the best dancer you’ve seen on Broadway,” Jackman said of his costar. Foster shared a similar sentiment about Jackman while appearing with him on Late Night with Seth Meyers. “I’m having the time of my life playing opposite this guy,” she said. “It’s a dream come true.” A mutual talent crush has been established.
When The Music Man opened on Broadway in February 2022, both of their marriages were still intact. Jackman and Foster walked the carpet arm in arm. “I hope their hearts are as filled as ours,” Jackman told Vanity Fair on the carpet, with Foster close by. “The show is about community, but I feel like we’ve created our own little community and our own little family and we take that very seriously,” Foster said.
Perhaps the pandemic-delayed gratification of performing, combined with the power of dueting on musical theater standards like “Till There Was You” and, well, falling in love onstage eight times a week had an effect on these two consummate show people. The Music Man closed in January of 2023; approximately nine months later, Jackman announced that he was separating from Furness after 27 years of marriage. Meanwhile, Foster filed for divorce from Griffin in October 2024. (Jackman’s divorce has since been finalized.)
Around this time, rumors swirled that something may have been bubbling up between the two former co-stars, but neither Jackman or Foster addressed the whispers head on—that is until they stepped out together for a date night on January 7th, 2025. Two years after The Music Man closed, the former co-stars were snapped together by People, smiling broadly and walking hand-in-hand in Los Angeles. In an exclusive statement to The Daily Mail, Furness opened up about her split from Jackman in May 2025. “My heart and compassion goes out to everyone who has traversed the traumatic journey of betrayal,” she said. Jackman never directly addressed Furness’s comment, but a source told The Daily Mail he was “disappointed” by it.
Meanwhile, Foster was busy doing what she does best: belting on Broadway as Princess Winnifred in a critically acclaimed revival of Once Upon A Mattress. (Jackman reportedly attended one of her final performances.) Jackman, too, had been busy with his peculiar double life as both a Marvel superhero and a Broadway leading man: he starred opposite Ryan Reynolds in the massively successful Deadpool and Wolverine, and kicked off a sold-out Radio City residency, “From New York, With Love.” (Foster quietly attended the show on opening night.) He also starred opposite Ella Beatty in the Off-Broadway play Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Class at Minetta Lane Theater.
Now that Foster and Jackman’s relationship is out in the open, the lovebirds are once again engaging in the very thing that (most likely) brought them together in the first place: musical theater. Foster and Jackman recently united to teach a master class to undergrads at Ball State University, where Foster is an instructor. “Hugh and I had a great time working with the talented students at Ball State University last week!,” she wrote on her Instagram account October 7. In the clip, Jackman and Foster look happy as can be; Foster is running a dance intensive, while Jackman delivers lectures to the rapt student body. “This is my world. These are my people. This is where I belong,” said Jackman in the video.
So, what’s next for Foster and Jackman? Another revival of a golden age musical, like Annie Get Your Gun? A stage adaptation of Song Sung Blue where Jackman reprises his role as Lightning and Foster steps into the Hudson’s role as Thunder? Either way, it will probably involve performing together. How could Sutton Foster, perhaps Broadway’s last tried and true triple threat, resist making more theater with Jackman, the Greatest Showman himself? Truly, there’s no business like show business.
The post Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster Put the “Show” in Showmance appeared first on Vanity Fair.
