Monica Bellucci and film producer Tim Burton dating for four months

Italian actress Monica Bellucci and film producer Tim Burton have been secretly dating for four months. 

The couple first met 16 years ago but are said to have started dating after seeing one another at the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon in October. 

Monica, 58, who was an honorary guest at the festival- presented Tim, 64, with the Lumiere lifetime achievement award on stage around the time they went official.

As he was handed the prize, Tim said: ‘All my life put together, I have never felt so much love as tonight. Welcome to the best funeral I ever had!’ 

The pair were also seen heading in to watch the re-production of Silent Documentary Film, directed in 1895 by late French filmmaker Louis Lumiere. 

Love: Monica Bellucci, 58, and film producer Tim Burton, 68, have been secretly dating for four months (Tim received the Lumiere lifetime achievement award from Monica in October)

Growing close: Monica and Tim sat alongside one another at the award ceremony 

All change: Helena Bonham Carter and long-term partner Tim Burton split in late 2014 after 13 years together, (pictured in 2012) 

Paris Match writes that Monica and Tim ‘briefly met on the steps of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes in 2006, but it was only sixteen years later, behind the scenes of another festival, that they got closer.’

MailOnline has contacted reps for both Tim Burton and Monica Bellucci for more information.

Monica has been single since she split from artist Nicolas Lefebvre in 2019. She was previously married to Vincent Cassel from 1997-2013. 

The former model met Cassel in 1996 on the set of Gilles Mimouni’s film l’Appartement. They have two daughters, Deva, who was born in 2004, and Leonie, who entered the world in 2010.

They were together for three years before marrying in a quiet ceremony in Monaco, on the French Riviera.

Monica spoke about love in an interview with Paris Match back in 2011 when she was still married to Cassel, admitting there is ‘no rationality’ for her when it comes to relationships.

She said: ‘I am carried by the moment and instinct. No rationality, only emotions. You love or you don’t.’

‘You don’t decide sitting around a table: OK, so I have two kids, 16 years of life as a couple, that would be nice if it lasts, but how I am going to make it work?

A sweet moment: Monica looked proudly on as Tim clutched his award, around the time that the pair are said to have gone official 

Weekend in Lyon: Monica was pictured with Tim (left) out and about at the Lumiere Festival that October weekend 

Hanging out: Vincent Macaigne (left), Vincent Perez, Monica Bellucci and Tim posed for snaps before heading in for the re-production of Lumiere’s 1895 film

‘I don’t think at all that a couple is something “you work out”, as we say.’

Tim was famously in a relationship with The Crown actress Helena Bonham Carter, 56. but they sadly split in 2014.

The pair were never married, but were together for 13 years and share two children; son Billy, 20, and daughter Nell, 16.

Helena spoke about the split with Harper’s Bazaar magazine in 2016. 

She said: ‘You go through massive grief – it is a death of a relationship, so it’s utterly bewildering. Your identity, everything, changes.’ 

‘Just saying: “I’m not myself at the moment, so be careful. Everyone always says you have to be strong and have a stiff upper lip, but it’s okay to be fragile.’

Ready to party: Monica has been single since she split from artist Nicolas Lefebvre in 2019 (pictured together that year) 

Past love: Monica was previously married to Vincent Cassel from 1997-2013 – pictured together in 2008 

Helena and Tim got together in 2001 after he cast her as an ape in Planet Of The Apes.

They famously lived in inter-connecting houses during their relationship, with each property decorated to their own his ‘n’ hers tastes and personal styles.

Now in a relationship with writer Rye Dag Holmboe, 34, Helena told Daily Mail’s Richard Eden in 2022 she felt ‘very lucky’ to have met him. 

She said she had made the step of choosing to share a home with her academic boyfriend, even adding to their domestic bliss by adopting house rabbits.

The couple met at a wedding in 2018.

Explaining how they met, she told The Guardian: ‘A totally random thing, which both of us nearly didn’t go to, so it was one of those moments that was so chance and ended up determining so much. A really happy accident, and it’s an amazing thing.’

Addressing the couple’s 22-year age gap, the actress previously said in an interview with The Times:

‘Everybody ages at a different rate. My boyfriend is unbelievably mature. He’s an old soul in a young body, what more could I want?

‘People are slightly frightened of older women, but he isn’t. Women can be very powerful when they’re older.’

Monica Bellucci and film producer Tim Burton dating for four months  
Source: Viral Buzz Philippines