$100 Million Divorce and They Still Double Date?! Inside Steven Spielberg’s Strange Post-Split Arrangement with His Ex-Wife

Most people split up and never look back. But when you're Steven Spielberg, life after divorce doesn’t just move on—it gets... weirdly wholesome.

Back in 1989, Spielberg and actress Amy Irving made headlines with their blockbuster breakup, capped off by one of the largest divorce settlements in Hollywood history: a jaw-dropping $100 million.

But here’s where the script flips.

Rather than going their separate ways forever, Spielberg and Irving have managed the unthinkable: they double date—yes, really—with their current spouses.

According to Irving, the two couples—Spielberg and wife Kate Capshaw, Irving and her husband Kenneth Bowser Jr.—occasionally share dinners like one big, blended Hollywood crew.

    “We’ve always communicated and been close,” Irving said on The Hollywood Reporter’s It Happened in Hollywood podcast. “He and Kate and my husband and I, we try to double-date now and then.”

Their story began back in 1976, when Irving auditioned for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. She didn’t get the role—but she did get the director. The pair fell hard, moved in together, and Spielberg even promised her the role of Marion Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

But when the relationship fell apart, so did that opportunity.

    “I guess real life meant more to me than my career,” she once told reporters. “I moved out, and I think when you walk out, you don't get the part.”

They reunited in 1984 after a chance encounter in India—Spielberg was scouting for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Irving was filming The Far Pavilions. The reunion led to the birth of their son, Max.

Still, being tied to Spielberg wasn’t always easy.

    “I think it hurt being Steven Spielberg’s wife—and then it hurt being the ex-Mrs. Steven Spielberg,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “It was awkward for a while… I felt non-existent.”

Despite all that, they found their way to a rare kind of post-divorce peace—one where exes break bread together like old friends.

From $100 million courtroom drama to casual dinner parties, Spielberg and Irving prove that even in Hollywood, some endings really do come with a plot twist.