Friday, 15 December 2006

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How Hilary Swank survived divorce

The actress opens up about her painful split from Chad Lowe

When Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe revealed they were divorcing in May, most fans figured the double Oscar-winner had gotten too famous for her lower-profile husband.

"Absolutely not," Swank, 32, says in a new interview.

"Millions of men and women fall in love, get married, then get divorced," she says in the January issue of Reader's Digest.

"If what happened to me helps someone realize they're in a great relationship and to hold the person closer, then do it. If it makes someone realize they're in an unhealthy relationship that is making them both unhappy, then it's not the end of the world."

So how did Swank survive the split? "You rely on your friends when you go through something so big," she says. "My friends are my family."

It probably doesn't hurt that Swank, whose new movie, Freedom Writers, opens in January, has bounced back with a new man: John Campisi, one of her agents at Creative Artists Agency. "I'm dating a great guy," she tells the magazine.

She might be getting over the emotional bruises of her divorce, but she hasn't quite recovered from one of her past movies: "I have some problems with elevated mercury in my system," she says. "I wasn't eating meat when I was filming Million Dollar Baby but had to put on 19 pounds of muscle. So I ate a lot of fish."