Fourteen months after her split from Robin Thicke, Paula Patton is embracing the single life. In fact, Patton — married to the “Blurred Lines” crooner for nine years — tells Meredith Vieira she’s “a real woman now” that she’s branched out on her own.
“I went from my parents’ house to moving in with Robin, and now I’m becoming an adult. I’m really, like, a real woman now!” Patton, who married her high school sweetheart in 2005, told Vieira in a Meredith Vieira Show interview airing Tuesday, March 31.
That’s not to say Patton’s single life is all cocktails and girls’ nights out. The 39-year-old coparents son Julian, 4, with Thicke, and admits she’s struggled as she’s “getting used to change.”
“I’ve grown a lot. It’s been a long year and a lot of challenges,” the actress admitted. “I live in a place of gratitude [and am] thankful for everything I have.”
One new normal Patton has especially struggled with is working mom guilt. “I took a lot of time off to be with him and then I had to pack for a trip because I had to go to work and he said, ‘Mommy I don’t want you to go to work,'” the Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol star recounted. “It’s the challenge of being a working mother and it’s the first time he ever said that to me because I did work when he was a baby but now he is more aware of everything, so what are you going to do? It’s sort of the trials and tribulations of being a woman.”
Patton’s time to focus on her family comes after a tumultuous split from Thicke, who famously fought for their marriage in song. Though the pair have remained amicable in the time since their breakup for the sake of their son, Thicke was dogged by cheating rumors, and responded not simply just by naming his latest album, the commercial and critical flop Paula, but also dedicating a song to his wife and performing it through tears at the 2014 BET Awards.
