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Susan Sarandon’s Ex-Boyfriend Jonathan Bricklin Opens Up About Their Breakup
After news emerged today that Susan Sarandon and her boyfriend Jonathan Bricklin have split up, the 37-year-old has finally broken his silence about their five-year relationship.
Speaking to ‘Life & Style’ today, Jonathan admits his involvement in the AOL documentary series ‘Connected,’ which centers on the lives of six New Yorkers and their partners, caused a strain on their relationship, but said they are currently working on the “issues” that the pressure of documenting their lives brought to light.
“The real truth is, the show didn’t break us up, but it made it hard and brought up a lot of stuff for us to figure out. Documenting our relationship was much more difficult than I expected it to be and Susan went way out of her comfort zone to support me. I can’t really say anymore to that effect, you’ll just have to watch and see,” said Jonathan, who is more than 30 years Susan’s junior.
Though his primary reason for doing the show was to document his journey as a writer (he published his first novel ‘Flicking Boogers In the Wind‘ last year), the entrepreneur admits he was also intrigued by the idea of making a documentary about himself and his “somewhat unusual romantic relationship”.
“It was my desire to portray my relationship with Susan in a way that might explain how our 30-year age difference wasn’t something freakish or even weird, and in fact is remarkably normal at the end of the day,” he said.
During the course of their relationship, the Oscar-winning actress declined to admit they were a couple despite being photographed publicly together, saying only that they “collaborated on a lot of things.” Susan is a founding partner of Jonathan’s ping pong franchise Spin.
But he admits that having her private life exposed in such a way was hard for Susan.
“She has been in the public eye for 40 years and because of that she values her privacy above almost everything. She was very supportive in this case because she knows my dream is to write books and for people to read them, but it’s been hard for her.”
When asked if being referred to as Susan’s “boy toy” for the last five years had anything to do with his decision to do the show, he said, “I thought it was pretty funny to be referred to as her boy toy for a few years. Then it lost its humor and started to freak me out that I might never live this down.
“My journey as a writer is one of the main focuses of my story. Deep down I try not to care what people think of me, but it’s not always easy. Ideally people are intrigued enough to read my book and future books and think I’m a wonderful writer with an absurd imagination.”
