Eat, Pray, Love author gushes over her new girlfriend after their relationship ended her nine-year marriage
- Elizabeth Gilbert spoke at the Airbnb Open conference in LA on Friday
- When asked what she was most excited about right now, she responded: 'I met a girl and I'm in love'
- In September, Gilbert wrote a Facebook post, revealing that she left her husband of nine years for her best friend Rayya Elias
- Gilbert said it was Elias' cancer diagnosis in spring made her realize she was romantically in love with her
Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert gushed about her new girlfriend at a speaking event on Friday.
The 47-year-old writer spoke of her new girlfriend, fellow writer Rayya Elias, at the Airbnb Open conference in Los Angeles.
When asked by an audience member what she was most excited about in her life right now, Gilbert responded: 'I met a girl and I'm in love'.
This comes two months after Gilbert made the bombshell announcement that she left her husband of nine years, Jose Nunes, for her longtime friend.
Gilbert broke the news with a Facebook post, saying it was Elias' pancreatic cancer diagnosis this past spring that made her realize her true affection for the person who had previously just been a platonic friend.
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Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert gushed about her new girlfriend Rayya Elias during a talk in Los Angeles on Friday
Gilbert made a bombshell announcement in September, saying she left her husband of nine years for her best friend of more than a decade (pictured together in April 2014)
'Something happened to my heart and mind in the days and weeks following Rayya's diagnosis. Death - or the prospect of death - has a way of clearing away everything that is not real, and in that space of stark and utter realness, I was faced with this truth: I do not merely love Rayya; I am in love with Rayya.
'And I have no more time for denying that truth. The thought of someday sitting in a hospital room with her, holding her hand and watching her slide away, without ever having let her (or myself!) know the extent of my true feelings for her...well, that thought was unthinkable,' Gilbert writes.
After expressing her true feelings for Elias, Gilbert says the two decided to start a relationship.
'Here is where we stand now: Rayya and I are together. I love her, and she loves me. I'm walking through this cancer journey with her, not only as her friend, but as her partner. I am exactly where I need to be - the only place I can be,' she said.
Gilbert's 2006 memoir 'Eat, Pray, Love' was turned into a 2010 film starring Julia Roberts. The man modeled off of her real-life husband Jose Nunes, is played by Javier Bardem in the film
Gilbert met Nunes, left, in Bali, during the year of traveling that her memoir is based off of
Gilbert separated from her husband of nine years this past spring because of her new feelings for Elias. Gilbert's husband plays a major role in her hit memoir, as the man she falls in love with in Bali at the end of her journey.
Gilbert and Elias have kept their new relationship private up until now to 'process all these massive changes and challenges'. She says that she decided to go public about the relationship now because she doesn't want to lie.
'Here's what it comes down to for me: I need to live my life in truth and transparency, even more than I need privacy, or good publicity, or prudence, or other people's approval or understanding, or just about anything else.
'Truth and transparency not only make my life more ethical, but also easier. (Why easier? Because untruth is always complicating, and truth — no matter what the consequences — is always strangely simplifying.)
Eat, Pray, Love spent more than 200 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List and sold more than 10 million copies world wide
'So that is why Rayya and I have decided together to speak up publicly now — both about her cancer and about our love for each other. It's for the sake of our own integrity, but it's also intended to make our lives simpler,' Gilbert says.
Gilbert's 2006 memoir 'Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across, Italy, India and Indonesia' chronicles her year of travel after divorcing her first husband. The book was an incredible hit, spending more than 200 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List, and selling more than 10 million copies worldwide.
In 2010, the book was turned into a movie starring Julia Roberts.
That wasn't the first time that Gilbert's work has been turned into a film though. In 1997, Gilbert wrote an essay about her time working as a bartender in New York City which was used as the inspiration for the film Coyote Ugly, starring Piper Perabo.
She wrote a follow up to the memoir in 2010, titled Committed, which is about her decision to marry Nunes after becoming a skeptic about marriage.
Elias is the author of Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post Punk, from the Middle East to the Lower East Side. She was born in Aleppo, Syria and moved to Michigan with her family when she was eight years old. She moved to New York City in 1983 where she became absorbed in the post-punk scene and was homeless for a period.
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