For the last year, Hollywood has been taken by storm by one leading lady more than any other: Wonder Woman herself, Gal Gadot.
Ever since the blockbuster hit wowed audiences around the world, netting nearly a billion dollars in the process, the world has fallen in love with Gadot, for her talents and personality both.
Long before Hollywood would fall in love with the 32-year-old Israeli actress, however, Israeli real estate developer Yaron Versano (in some instances written as Jaron Varsano) would fall in love with her, almost at first sight, as Gadot recalls it.
The couple have been adorably open about their relationship on social media, and whenever they attend a red carpet event together, it’s hard to look anywhere else but at the stunning and clearly deeply in love couple.
As Gadot’s star continues to rise and shine brighter than ever before, it’s only natural to wonder more about the private side of her public life.
So in case you were wondering, here are some facts you may not have known about Gadot and Versano’s relationship.
With that said, here are the 15 Crazy Secrets About Gal Gadot’s Marriage.
15. They’ve been married for 10 years and together for 12 years
The longevity of a relationship in Hollywood is something that seems to be rapidly dwindling.
It’s bad enough that couples who are merely dating seem to be splitting left and right at a speed faster than ever before, but it’s even worse when you notice the likewise shocking rate of divorce and the shrinking length of marriage to go with it.
These numbers seem dramatically changed, however, when couples are married before they’re lucky enough to become famous. Gadot and Versano’s relationship attests to this fact.
Per Gadot’s recollection, they met in 2006 in Israel and became an item soon afterward.
By the fall of 2008, the couple were married, and will therefore soon be celebrating ten years of wedded bliss – a rare feat in Hollywood, these days.
14. Versano is 10 years older than Gadot
Age differences in relationships in Hollywood are fairly common, so it’s no real surprise that the gap between Gadot and Versano is ten years.
If anything, by Hollywood standards, that’s a fairly reasonable age gap.
Gadot was born in 1985 and Versano in 1975. When they met, Gadot was in her early 20s and Versano in his early 30s, which Gadot credits as being a reason that Versano was able to be more serious and forward-thinking about their relationship from the very beginning.
While she admits that she was too young to understand things at the start, she also acknowledges that he knew what he wanted right from the start, which helped their relationship to grow and truly flourish as well as it has in the twelve years since then.
13. They met via mutual friends who had brought them to a yoga retreat
Cute stories about meeting for the first time are common for a lot of Hollywood relationships, but not every couple can brag about having as quirky and truly unique a meeting story as Gadot and Versano has.
Certain celebrity couples talk about how fellow famous friends set them up with one another, or how they met through a project they were both attached to. However, few couples can boast about meeting purely by chance.
In a March 2016 interview with Glamour while promoting Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Gadot explained their meeting: “We met nearly 10 years ago through mutual friends at this very strange party in the Israeli desert. It was all about yoga, chakras, and eating healthy—we didn’t exactly find ourselves there, but we found each other.”
See? Sometimes, letting your friends drag you to places you have no interest in going really can pay off.
12. Until 2015, they ran the Varsano Hotel in Tel Aviv
Versano is something of a real estate mogul. Until 2015, Versano, Gadot, and Yaron’s brother ran The Varsano Hotel in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The hotel has been wildly successful and highly rated for many years, showing that Gadot isn’t the only successful one in the family.
Gadot herself has claimed in the past that the family was involved in the daily running of the hotel, rather than merely behind the scenes owners who were removed from the goings on at their property. S
he even went so far as to note that she herself was responsible for changing the bed sheets in the highly-rated hotel.
In 2015, however, the Versano brothers sold the hotel to billionaire and Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich for 100 million Israeli New Shekel – or, at the time, $26 million USD.
11. Versano was inspired to design the hotel based on time spent in California with Gadot
As it turns out, Gadot’s involvement in The Varsano Hotel went a whole lot further back than just helping the brothers to run it. In fact, had it not been for Gadot’s connection to the family, the hotel very well could never have happened at all.
Gadot explained this surprising story in a 2011 interview: “After I shot Fast Four, my husband Yaron and I started travelling back and forth from Israel and the US, which was hard.”
She continued: “We found ourselves staying in hotels all the time. We wanted to feel at home, which is when we discovered these apartments within a hotel in Los Angeles. It became the inspiration for Yaron’s hotel, The Varsano.”
Explaining their partnership further, she went on to add, “I think that Yaron and I make a really good team. I understand his career and he understands mine. We help each other progress in all areas of life. We’re both very career driven.”
10. Versano promised on their second date that he would propose within two years
New couples are likely to be stuck in unsure territory for a little while as they get to know one another and figure out what they would like their relationship to be.
Sometimes, relationships just aren’t meant to work, so they fizzle and end almost as soon as they’ve started.
However, according to Gal, Yaron was quite sure about what he wanted for them in their relationship – and even further, he knew that he saw a very long future in store for them.
“He told me on our second date he was serious and wasn’t going to wait more than two years to ask me to marry him,” Gadot recalled in that same 2016 interview with Glamour. “Fast-forward two years; he proposed. We were married in 2008.”
9. They have two daughters
It’s not just Wonder Woman who has a real soft spot in her heart for children. Gal Gadot and Yaron Versano have welcomed two young daughters within the last few years.
Daughter Alma was born in 2012, and newcomer Maya was born just last year.
Adding to Maya’s fame is a fun fact that enhances the appreciation audience members should have for Gadot’s performance in Wonder Woman, and for the movie itself.
During re-shoots of certain scenes for the touch up portion of the movie, Gadot was pregnant with Maya.
“It didn’t hinder the process, I could still do the action stuff and the physical scenes," Gadot explained.
“And now, it’s nice to look at the movie and know that Maya is in the movie with me in some way. I love that. She has an entry on movie database IMDb. It took me years to get mine," she said.
8. Their eldest daughter is totally unfazed by fame
While Maya may have become a star without even knowing it, it turns out that her older sister, Alma, isn’t exactly fazed by any part of the Hollywood lifestyle.
In an October 2017 interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Gadot had some fun relating Alma’s point of view about celebrity.
“Alma, she’s like the best thing ever to me. She’s my daughter. But whenever people talk to me about Wonder Woman, she completely takes over the conversation,” Gadot explained, before getting into a bit of an impression of her daughter.
“And she’s like, ‘Listen, we’ve been to London. It was amazing. I was working on set, too, but I was 4…3…4…so I didn’t do all the takes. It was cold. And they dressed me like a poor girl, and I didn’t want to do it because I don’t want to be famous. But honestly, every woman is Wonder Woman. My mom is just the biggest one because she does the movie.’”
7. They split their time between Israel and California as much as they can
Traveling is an inevitably guaranteed part of life for celebrities, whether it has to do with filming on location for a role, taking part in promotion, attending awards ceremonies, or any other of the many intense aspects of the day to day life of the rich and famous.
For Gadot and Versano, however, it’s always been important to remain grounded, which they try to do as much as possible by splitting their residential time between California and Israel.
As Gadot explained in a 2011 interview, “At the moment, my time is split between Israel and Los Angeles. Although the travelling can sometimes be tough, it means that I get to enjoy both worlds. It’s really important for me that I continue working on features and dramas in Israel while also working in the US.”
6. Both Versano and Gadot are outspoken feminists
Wonder Woman is nothing short of a feminist icon. She certainly always has been, but in the wake of the success and impact of the 2017 movie in which Gadot starred, her feminist power has been stronger than ever.
It’s only natural, then, that Gal Gadot has become quite the outspoken feminist herself.
On social media and in the press, she advocates for equal pay and is a part of the Time’s Up movement that has been sweeping Hollywood, among so many other crucial social issues.
Likewise, her husband, Yaron, has used his platform on Instagram to express his support for feminist causes, especially through his wife’s platform.
On International Women’s Day, he even shared a post in which he wrote, “Love, respect, and equality are the key ingredients for our society to become a nursing grounds for a better future.”
5. Versano uses his Instagram to adorably express his love for Gadot
Social media has its many pros and cons, especially more than ever now. However, one way in which people seem to be fond of using it is to share snapshots of their relationships and their families, especially when it comes to praising what they love so much about one another.
And in a clear case that really does show that celebrities are just like us, Yaron Versano’s Instagram may be one of the cutest things on the internet you’ve seen in quite some time.
Under the Instagram handle @jaronvarsano, Versano almost exclusively posts effusively proud and loving messages about his wife and their daughters, and has been doing so for many years now.
Whether it’s reflecting on an exciting event he and his wife were able to attend, or showing his gratitude for the quieter things in life, Versano’s Instagram is truly a wonderful example of a grateful husband and father.
4. His Instagram also reveals that he has a photo of Gadot as his lock screen
One of the cutest things we have been treated to as a result of Versano’s frequent use of Instagram is the knowledge that he uses a photo of his wife as his iPhone lock screen.
Traditionally considered a sign of “couple goals” in this day and age of social media and technology, it’s a sweet reminder of how similar celebrities’ lives can be to our own.
Even better, it doesn’t seem to be a heavily edited photoshoot image of Gadot, but rather, a black and white candid moment of Gadot walking down the street.
It’s a sweet show of affection for an already clearly affectionate couple.
It’s a wonderful insight into just how caring and connected the two are in their personal, non-publicized lives.
3. More recently, they’ve become more private about their children
Social media has a lot of benefits, especially for your everyday average people who use it to connect with family and friends.
However, when sudden fame is thrust upon someone who had been a lowkey celebrity, and now becomes a worldwide phenomenon, social media suddenly gets a whole lot trickier.
Therefore, it’s easy to understand why, in recent months, Gadot and Versano have become a whole lot more careful about what they post about their family on social media. Gadot has even deleted old Instagram posts that had featured photos of her daughters.
In some recent posts, children’s faces have been covered, or they have been artfully taken so that you can tell a child is present, but their face is obscured.
It’s hard to be private as a celebrity in this day and age, but it’s a great sign of integrity and responsible parenting that the couple are now taking these steps.
2. Gadot admits now that she knew he was the one for her right away
Yaron was completely certain about the relationship from the very beginning: he saw a future with Gal, and he wanted to make sure that she knew it, and knew that he was serious about her, in turn.
However, as Gal was much younger, she’s explained that she didn’t realize at the time just how serious she felt about their future as well.
When asked if she knew he was the one from the very beginning, Gal admitted, “I think I did, but I was too young to get it.”
With that being said, she knew that Yaron had known from the start that she was the one for him, and given the way he went about demonstrating it with his powerful promise on their second date, there really isn’t any chance of misinterpreting that one.
1. Versano convinced Gadot that being a working, traveling mother was worth it
Deconstructing the myth of the perfect work-life balance is something that has been the forefront of many feminist movements.
So it isn’t really a surprise that even for Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman in the flesh, feelings of anxiety regarding traveling for work and tending to a young child were quite common.
However, Gadot was lucky enough to have her husband’s full support on the matter, as well as a particularly inspiring perspective of things.
“When Alma was around two, I was really anxious about how to travel with a child, moving her from one country to the other, all the different languages,” Gadot explained in her interview with Glamour.
“It was my husband who told me: ‘Gal, think about what kind of a role model you want to be. If you want to show Alma that she can follow her dreams, that’s what you should do, and we will figure out the logistics,’” she said.
What’s your favorite fact about Gal Gadot and Yaron Versano’s marriage? Let us know in the comments!
