Meg Ryan: Women can't combine Hollywood and marriage

Meg Ryan: Women can't have Hollywood career and love

Meg Ryan has insisted that women can't have a Hollywood career and a happy love life – and also insists that Russell Crowe did not break up her marriage.

The queen of romantic comedies famously made a successful career starring in mushy movies like When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail, and Sleepless in Seattle, where love conquers all. But her own life hasn't seen a fairytale ending.

The 46-year-old was married to actor Dennis Quaid for ten years, until she had an affair with Russell Crowe during filming of the 2000 movie Proof of Life.

And, she told Hello! magazine, she found it impossible to maintain her marriage with the constant demands of work.

She said: 'It's very difficult to be a career person and have a relationship. I didn't succeed at doing it at all. It's incredibly hard.'

She added: 'I think you have to figure out some way of keeping all of those capabilities and requirements in your life in balance.'

The Golden Globe winner admitted that it was hard to leave her relationship with Crowe behind, but insists that he wasn't a homewrecker.

'Russell was incredibly gracious to me during a really hard time and in the aftermath,' she said.

'I empowered myself by not staying in the thing with Russell. I felt it was going to be repeating some similar patterns that I'd just gotten out of and it was a drag because I was crazy about him.'

She has insisted that her marriage was no longer working when the pair became involved.

She told the Oprah Winfrey show: 'Russell wasn't a homewrecker. He didn't talk and I'll always be grateful to him for that. But I did not leave my marriage for him. I left because it was not working.'

But despite her tumultous love life, she insists she still 'absolutely, absolutely' believes in romance.