Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert has spoken for the first time since the death of her partner three months ago.
Gilbert opened up on the heartbreak of losing the “love of her life” and fellow author Rayya Elias in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
Gilbert, 48, enjoyed incredible success with her memoir Eat Pray Love, which documented her journey across the world following the breakdown of her marriage.
The book – which has sold 12 million copies worldwide and was made into a Hollywood film starring Julia Roberts as Gilbert – even documented her meeting future husband Jose Nunes in Indonesia.
But they split two years ago after Gilbert fell in love with Elias, her female best friend who died from cancer in January, aged 57.
Now, Gilbert has spoken of her heartbreak for the first time.
She told the newspaper: “The grief hits you at weird times, and there are weird triggers for it.
“And it doesn’t matter how expected it was, or even how welcome it was by the end, because of the pain (Elias went through), there’s still the great existential crisis. Where did she go? How is she not here? My favourite person has gone: now what?
“People have been so kind and generous to me, but when you’ve lost somebody of that significance, the question is: who are you going to be now? And it’s too soon for me to tell.”
Gilbert was already a relatively successful writer when she released her 2006 memoir, Eat Pray Love.
The book chronicled her journey to Italy (Eat), India (Pray) and Indonesia (Love), where she met her future husband.
Two years ago, her marriage broke down and she began a relationship with Elias, who she first met around 2000.
Elias had been diagnosed with incurable pancreatic and liver cancer and the couple held a commitment ceremony last June in front of close friends and family.
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