Inside Cate Blanchett’s 26-year marriage: Who is the actress’ husband Andrew Upton and how did they meet? A look at their relationship as the star is spotted without her wedding ring on

Mystery has surrounded Cate Blanchett’s marriage in recent days as she has been spotted without her wedding ring on at a string of high-profile events.

The Australian actress, 54, has not been seen publicly on a date with her husband Andrew Upton since their sun-soaked Ibiza holiday in August 2023.

The couple, who tied the knot in 1997, also raised eyebrows earlier this month after putting their sprawling three-bedroom mansion in Prahran, Melbourne, on the market.

A source told Woman’s Day magazine earlier this week that Cate’s missing wedding ring has set off alarm bells about the status of their marriage.

But who is Cate’s husband Andrew and how did the couple meet? MailOnline takes a look back at their relationship and 26-year marriage.

Cate first met her Australian playwright husband Andrew, 58, in the mid-1990s while she was starring as Nina in a production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull.

However, she has candidly revealed how it wasn’t love at first sight for the pair – who were dating other people at the time – as she admitted she found Andrew ‘arrogant’.

She has previously spoken about how they knew each other socially but didn’t get on and ‘mutually’ didn’t like each other before romantic sparks began to fly.

Speaking on the The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 2013, Cate revealed: ‘It was mostly animosity… He thought I was aloof and I thought he was arrogant.’

‘We just didn’t really connect and we were going out with other people, who we’re still friends with, and it was always an issue when the four of us went out that Andrew and I had something going on.’

But the first signs of romance then emerged during a late night game of poker, with screenwriter Andrew proposing just three weeks later in a whirlwind early romance.

She explained: ‘One night we were playing poker and he was in the middle of telling me how he was attracted to a friend of mine and then we suddenly kissed and then he asked me to marry him three weeks later.’

She also said in a 1999 Vanity Fair interview: ‘He thought I was aloof and I thought he was arrogant. And it just shows how wrong you can be. But once he kissed me, that was that.’

The Carol star previously gushed that she knew after just three days that they were going to get married, and their engagement came just weeks later.

Back in 2015, Cate told Ellen DeGeneres: ‘After three days, he turned to me, we were in bed – as you are after three days -and he said, “Cate”. And I thought, “S**t, he’s going to ask me to marry him and I’m going to have to say yes”. 

‘And then he said, “I’m hungry, do you want to go get something to eat?” But then he asked me after about 21 days, and I said yes.’

Reflecting on the proposal itself, Cate confessed that she had cooked ‘the worst meal’ and joked that Andrew had clearly only proposed because he was ‘hallucinating’.

‘I cooked him the worst meal. I somehow decided that to stuff a trout with walnuts and goat’s cheese would be a good idea,’ she hilariously said.

‘He ate it, and then he asked me to marry him, so clearly, he was, I don’t know, hallucinating.’

After the whirlwind proposal, the couple tied the knot in a romantic ceremony in December 1997.

The couple went on to welcome four children together – sons Dashiell, 22, Roman, 19, and Ignatius, 16, and a daughter Edith, eight. 

While Cate has carved out a hugely successful career as an actress and soared to global fame, Andrew has also seen big success across theatre and film.

Like his wife Cate, Andrew is from Australia and was born and raised in Sydney, and attended the University of Sydney, before going on to become a screenwriter, playwright and director.

He has adapted a string of famous plays including The Cherry Orchard, The White Guard, Waiting for Godot and Uncle Vanya for productions in London and Sydney.

He also served as the artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company from 2008 to 2012, and even wrote a libretto for an opera.

Andrew has worked on a string of high-profile movies including 1995’s Babe, 2005’s Stories of Lost Souls and 2015’s Carol – which starred his wife Cate and saw her nab an Oscar nomination.

The couple also formed their own production company Dirty Films in 2000 and it has seen them work behind the scenes on projects including 2023 thriller The New Boy and 2020’s comedy Apples.

Cate told E! Online in 2015: ‘It’s been a great creative partnership with my husband and also a great love affair. Working together, running a creative company in Australia. It’s been fantastic.’

Andrew has been long supportive of his wife’s Hollywood career and has previously admitted that he ‘quite enjoys’ being married to a high-profile star.

In 2008, Andrew told The Independent: ‘Her public identity is very associated with her work, which I think is good, right and proper because she’s bloody good at it. 

‘When her work is coming into focus, people want to see a photo of her carrying shopping bags. I can understand it – people are interested and I’m glad they’re interested otherwise they wouldn’t come to see it.’

For their 10th wedding anniversary, Andrew marked the special occasion by getting the word ‘ten’ tattooed on his right wrist.

He told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2013: ‘We got married in 1997 so the tattoo’s about five years old. Yes, it did hurt a little bit.’

But Cate recently joked that their anniversary gifts are generally more practical as she detailed the gifts she has been given over the years to mark the occasion.

She told The Mirror in 2020: ‘My first wedding ­anniversary my ­husband gave me a vacuum cleaner and then he gave me a mixer.

‘It used to be silver and gold but now that list includes coffee makers and irons and gone is the sense of getting to the gold and diamond anniversary. Now it’s the microwave anniversary. It’s so less romantic now and timeless.’

The couple – who have been living in the UK since 2015 – have now been married for 26 years, and generally keep their romance relatively under wraps.

However, in recent days, Cate has left fans puzzled after stepping out at the 2024 BAFTA Film Awards without her wedding ring on, after a string of ring-free outings.

Rather than wearing her white gold and diamond wedding sparkler, the Blue Jasmine star sported a large emerald cocktail ring for the event, which she attended solo without her husband.

Cate was also spotted ring-free earlier this month, when she attended an event in New York at the Museum of Modern Art on February 6th. 

She made no attempt at hiding her bare wedding finger as she smiled for photos outside the exclusive event.

In October, Cate was once again seen without her wedding ring as she sat front row at the Stella McCartney runway show during Paris Fashion Week, instead wearing a set of elegant gold bands on her wedding finger.

Speaking to Woman’s Day magazine on Monday, a source close to the couple said Cate’s missing ring has set off alarm bells about the status of her marriage. 

‘Seeing Cate without her ring has sent shockwaves through their friends. For the first time they’re wondering if things aren’t so rosy,’ the insider claimed.

The couple also haven’t been seen out on a date since August, when they were photographed enjoying a sun-drenched holiday in Ibiza.

Meanwhile, they raised eyebrows earlier this month after putting their sprawling mansion in Prahran, Melbourne, on the market. 

The three-bedroom family home, which the couple purchased in 2006, is set to be sold at auction with a price guide of $2.25million-$2.45million.   

They still own several other properties together, including a Victorian mansion in East Sussex, England, which they bought for £4.9 million (AU$9.4million) in 2015.

The couple also own an investment property in Sydney’s CBD.