How did Kelly Preston meet John Travolta?

John Travolta and Kelly Preston, who has died of breast cancer aged 57, were married for 28 years – adjusted for Hollywood, that’s a century.

Asked what made her marriage a success, Preston told Good Morning America it was “communication, keeping it fresh, checking in with each other and evolving... You change, so you want to change together. Keep it fun, it doesn't just happen on its own.”

John Travolta and Kelly Preston at a Scientology event circa 1991.

And the couple’s long relationship wasn’t all roses. Here’s a look back at their love story.

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The Meet-Cute

Preston and Travolta met when she did a screen test for the 1989 film The Experts.

In a 2018 appearance on US morning talk show Live with Kelly and Ryan, Preston said when she saw Travolta sashay across the room towards her, “that was it.”

Preston won the role, and while The Experts was a total commercial and critical bomb, it was responsible for one of Hollywood’s most enduring love stories.

So sweet, you can almost forgive Travolta’s mullet.

The course of true love didn’t run quite as smooth as the above suggests, however.

Preston was briefly engaged to Charlie Sheen before she began dating Travolta.

When Travolta shimmied over to Preston on the day of her audition in 1987, she was married to the actor Kevin Gage.

While they divorced shortly thereafter, Preston and Travolta didn’t immediately get together; Preston dated George Clooney and was even briefly engaged to Charlie Sheen before her friendship with Travolta turned romantic.

Engagement and wedding

The happy couple at the 1991 Deauville Film Festival, days after their Paris wedding.

Travolta proposed on December 31, 1990, in Gstaad, Switzerland, with a six-carat yellow diamond ring.

The couple planned to wed in New York City in 1991, but changed their plans when the occasion started to snowball.

“Once the florist’s assistant got an assistant, I was done,” Preston said in that 2018 interview.

Instead, they eloped to Paris and were married at the luxurious Hotel de Crillon on September 5, 1991, en route to the Deauville Film Festival.

However, the ceremony, which was performed by a French scientology minister (Travolta had been practising the religion since 1975), wasn’t legally recognised in the US, so Preston and Travolta had a civil ceremony stateside on September 12.

Family time

Travolta and Preston with their daughter, Ella, and son, Jett.

The couple’s first child, son Jett (named in honour of his father’s love of planes and flying) was born the following April. At 15 months old, he was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease, and was on the autism spectrum.

Daughter Ella followed in 2000.

The same year, Preston and Travolta both starred in Battlefield Earth, an adaptation of the novel by Scientology Church founder L Ron Hubbard and a longtime passion project for Travolta.

They won a pair of Razzie Awards for Worst Actor and Worst Supporting Actress for the film.

Tragedy

Tragedy struck the family when, on January 2, 2009, Jett suffered a seizure and died while the family was on holiday in the Bahamas.

“Jett was the most wonderful son that two parents could ever ask for and lit up the lives of everyone he encountered,” Preston and Travolta said in a statement at the time. “We are heartbroken that our time with him was so brief. We will cherish the time that we had with him for the rest of our lives.”

Adding to their grief was an alleged multi-million dollar extortion plot concerning the circumstances of Jett’s death. Three people, one of whom Travolta and Preston reportedly considered a close friend, were arrested in the Bahamas a few weeks after Jett died.

The first trial against the trio ended in a mistrial, after which Travolta and Preston dropped the charges.

New baby and sobriety

Preston and Travolta with their daughter, Ella, after Jett’s death.

In November of the following year Preston, then aged 48, gave birth to the couple’s third child, son Benjamin.

Speaking to People, she and Travolta called the pregnancy a “miracle”, adding that they had been trying to have another child for several years.

At the time of Benjamin’s birth, Preston also got sober, revealing that she had had problems with drugs and alcohol in the past.

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

The couple with son Benjamin and daughter Ella at the 2018 premiere of Gotti.

“Now I don’t drink any more,” she told TV host Amanda de Cadenet. “I don’t smoke any more. I don’t do drugs any more. All of those come with an ‘any more’. I used to do everything and a lot of everything.”

She added: “With drinking, I just decided that I wasn’t always at my best. There were times where I drank too much, for sure.”

Preston’s final years

Since having Benjamin, Preston’s sole film credit was the 2018 mobster biopic Gotti, in which she starred alongside Travolta (she also had a three-episode arc on CSI: Cyber in 2016 and stars in the film Off the Rails, due for release this year).

However, the actress was active on Instagram, regularly posting photos of her husband and children and in awareness of causes she supported.

Her final post wished a happy Father’s Day to Travolta – “the best one I know” – along with a photo of Preston, Travolta, Ella and Benjamin and another of Travolta and Jett.

We now know she had been battling breast cancer for the last couple of years, although the family chose not to make her illness public.

Announcing her death on Instagram, Travolta said his wife’s “love and life will always be remembered.”

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