Michelle Williams has very bravely opened up about how she's been coping since the death of her ex-fiance Heath Ledger, admitting that she still struggles to talk about the actor. In the new interview, which appears in full in the October issue of Vogue, Michelle admits, "I was holding it together by a string and a paper clip in the fall and winter. I didn’t know if I could keep it all together. After the first year, the pain is less intense; it’s less immediate. But the magical thinking goes away too. And that’s a whole new reckoning." Michelle and Heath met and fell in love while making Brokeback Mountain together, and Michelle now says of that time, "Brokeback Mountain was an unrepeatable moment in time, a very charmed time in my life. I was in love; I was in a movie I was proud to be a part of, and with a beautiful brand-new baby. Everything was good in that moment." Asked if she still thinks about her ex, Michelle replies, "Every time I really miss him and wonder where he’s gone, I just look at [Mathilda]." She also confesses that falling in love again (with director Spike Jonze) was the only way she could put an end to the pain she was feeling. However, a stronger Michelle says in closing, "I feel hopeful and grateful. For a while I thought we had lost everything. It makes you want to love better and live better."
Michelle talks about Heath