Ant Anstead’s two previous marriages haven’t completely deterred him from potentially walking down the wedding aisle with girlfriend Renée Zellweger.
“I still believe in marriage, but right now we’re really happy,” Anstead, 47, told The Telegraph in an interview published on Friday, July 24, of the possibility the pair would say “I do” in the future.
The TV personality noted that while he does call Zellweger, 57, “the missus,” they aren’t in a rush to get hitched.
“We don’t need the pressure of a label,” Anstead added of their relationship.
Ant was previously married to Louise Anstead from 2005 to 2017. The exes share two children, Amelie, 22 and Archie, 19. He moved on with Christina Haack, whom he wed in 2018. The pair, who share son Hudson, 7, announced their divorce in 2020.
Ant and Zellweger, meanwhile, met while working on a 2021 episode of Discovery Channel’s Celebrity IOU: Joyride, where they bonded over their shared knowledge of cars.
“Renée is a hands-on car girl,” Ant told the outlet of the actress’ vibe on set. “She used a grinder to cut metal, she was welding, she was on the spanners.”
The Bridget Jones’s Diary star impressed Ant as soon as she drove stick shift mid-shoot.
“A lot of people in America don’t drive stick [manual cars] but, on the first day of filming, we needed to relocate a car for a scene,” he recalled. “Ren jumps in, goes, ‘I’ll do it!’, slams it into first, and off she goes. I’m like, ‘Wow. This lady really knows her cars.’”
Ant later learned that Zellweger’s dad was a Swiss engineer and she had picked up a thing or two from him along the way.
“She’s a very real person. She’s absolutely brilliant, the most grounded, humble person,” he gushed. “If there’s a car job to be done at home, I say, ‘We’re doing this together. Put your overalls on, let’s go.’”
After sparking a relationship on Celebrity IOU: Joyride, the pair became a couple off camera and haven’t looked back, celebrating their five-year anniversary in April.
While the couple have not reunited on camera, Ant said Zellweger is very much involved in his latest show, Ant Anstead: Born Mechanic.
He revealed that although Zellweger doesn’t appear on the car repair/restoration series for Quest, she has been guiding him from behind the camera.
“Ren was looking over my shoulder without me realizing [while I shopped on eBay for a few reclaimed gates]. The next day I went to buy them and they were gone. I was mad,” Ant told the publication. “I arrived here and they were in the barn with a balloon on them for my birthday.”
The former Wheelers and Dealers host explained that Zellweger had “secretly contacted my dad and arranged for him to collect them.”
Ant teased, “As a gift, it knocks a pair of socks on the head.”
