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Helena Bonham Carter on Tim Burton Split: “I Could Write a Thesis on What’s Happened”

Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter
After 13 years together, Helena Bonham Carter opened up about her December 2014 split from Tim Burton in Red magazine

Got a pen? Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton may have ended their 13-year relationship in December 2014, but the actress still thinks fondly of her ex.

Related: PHOTOS: Celebrity splits 2014

“I could write a thesis on what’s happened and it is all-absorbing when a relationship breaks down, but I think we’re coming through it, and I think we’ll have something very precious still. Our relationship was always somewhat special, and I think it’ll always remain special,” the English star, 49, said in the November issue of British magazine Red.

“We did find each other. And really, the mark of a successful relationship shouldn’t be whether you’re there forever after,” she continued. “Sometimes you’re not meant to be forever together. Sometimes you have to come to terms with the fact that that was it. But that was a gift, a massive gift. We gave each other children and a lot more else.” 

Related: PHOTOS: Couple's who didn't wed

Helena Bonham Carter on the cover of Red
Helena Bonham Carter on Red’s November 2015 issue

The Oscar-nominated actress and the producer-director, 57, first met on set of 2001’s Planet of the Apes, which Burton directed. The quirky pair never married, and share son Billy, 11, and daughter Nell, 7.

Bonham Carter and Burton always kept tight-lipped about their longtime romance. But now, the actress is clearing up one pesky rumor: that they didn’t live under the same roof during their relationship. (In 2010, it was rumored that the two lived on separate sides of a conjoined property in London.)

Related: PHOTOS: Friendly exes

“We might be better, and still be able to give to each other, but not necessarily living together,” she told the mag. “Which we did by the way, because everyone seemed to think we didn’t, but that was a load of myth.”

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