The Truth About Heidi Klum And Seal's Relationship
It's hard not to romanticize Heidi Klum and Seal's relationship. They were seemingly one of Hollywood's most loving couples for nearly a decade. The English singer and the German model appeared to be a match made in heaven complete with Victoria's Secret angel wings and kisses from roses. When Klum reminisced about first laying eyes on Seal in an interview with Piers Morgan (via CNN), she said, "it was kind of like two magnets." That passion showed through in frequent PDA on red carpets.
But what was their relationship really like? It was, of course, more complicated than the fairytale that fans might have envisioned, and like most celebrity partnerships, it had an expiration date. During their seven-year marriage, the celebrity twosome went through a lot: They raised four children together, held yearly vow renewal ceremonies, went all out for Halloween parties, faced cheating rumors, and ultimately filed for divorce. Let's take a close look at the true details of Heidi Klum and Seal's relationship.
They met in a hotel lobby
You might expect stars like Heidi Klum and Seal to have rubbed shoulders at a Hollywood party or have been set up by celebrity friends. In reality, they met near an elevator. According to Klum, she was sitting in the lobby of a New York City hotel when Seal walked by in his exercise ensemble. "I was, like, wow ... And I pretty much saw everything. The whole package," Klum said on the "Oprah Winfrey Show," via People. While it may have been his figure that initially interested her, she quickly realized there was also a deeper connection. "I was physically, straightaway attracted to him, and then we got talking, and I was like, 'Wow, he's such a warm and charming man," she added in the Oprah interview.
As for Seal, he too felt an instant spark. "What first attracted me to her was the kindness in her smile that prompted me to feel that I hadn't seen anyone more beautiful," Seal said of their meeting, per People. Definitely sounds like a genuine love at first sight story, even if it didn't end up being a tale of everlasting love.
Seal proposed to Heidi Klum in an igloo
After dating for a year, Seal had marriage on his mind. He orchestrated an elaborate plot to pop the question in the Canadian Rockies. "I proposed on December 23 at 14,000 feet in Whistler, B.C., in uncharted terrain on a glacier, in a natural snow cave, in an igloo built just for the moment," Seal explained to People. The singer brought his guitar to the getaway and sang a romantic song before getting down on one knee, per CNN.
Klum's firsthand account gave us even more details. "[Seal] took me by helicopter ... He had an igloo built there, and they'd brought up everything: a bed with sheets inside the igloo, rose petals everywhere, candles. Very, very romantic!" Klum told Marie Claire. "It was a little scary, too, because you're so cut off from the world. No trees, nothing — it was hardcore. But I was ecstatic," she added.
Klum and Seal got married in Mexico
Heidi Klum was pregnant with her second child (her first child with Seal) when she officially tied the knot with the "Love's Divine" singer in 2005. Klum was 31 at the time of the wedding; Seal was 42. While this was Seal's first trip down the aisle, Klum had been married once before to hairstylist Ric Pipino. She divorced her first husband in 2002.
The wedding took place outdoors in a Mexican resort called Cuixmala, according to E! News. Seal reportedly owned a home close to the location in Puerto Vallarta, and the couple said "I do" right on the beach. The ceremony was kept relatively private with only 40 guests in attendance. While not too many insider details about the ceremony were shared with the public, People reported that Klum wore an empire waist Vera Wang dress decked out with Chantilly lace. Their cake was also reportedly topped with figurines of the English singer and the German model.
They had four children together
Heidi Klum was pregnant with her ex Flavio Briatore's child when she first got together with Seal, and she shared the news with him on one of their first dates. He told The Mirror, "I laughed and said, 'Already? That's amazing!' She said, 'Not with you, stupid.'" He added, "There was a pause of about 10 seconds and I said, 'It doesn't change the way I feel about you because the fact that you are here tells me that you think a lot about me.'" Seal adopted the child, nicknamed Leni, and raised her as his own, per W Magazine.
Klum and Seal went on to have three more children: Henry, Jonah, and Lou. Their parenting style was reportedly fairly strict. Klum told Hello! Magazine, "I'm quite a helicopter parent. I'm very protective." She also told OK! Magazine, "I'm old-fashioned," explaining she limited their children's television time and shielded them from the internet when they were young.
The couple had some pretty wild Halloween parties
Heidi Klum started her annual Halloween extravaganza, dubbed Heidiween, in 2000, per Cosmopolitan. Once she was with Seal in 2004, Klum's costumes became more of a couple's affair. In 2006, for example, Seal dressed up as the biblical Eve to match Klum's forbidden fruit costume (pictured above). In 2009, they wore matching crow costumes, and in 2010, they showed up as matching metallic superheroes. And 2011 brought their strangest (and final) costume as a couple: a pair of apes. The couple was unrecognizable as they kissed for the cameras in the hyper-realistic primate costumes, created by a professional prosthetic team, Klum explained in an interview on the red carpet for the event.
Even though they planned coordinating outfits for seven years, Klum was clearly the one running the show. When AP asked Seal how much input he had in the costume, he said, "None. I do as I'm told." Klum's Halloween bashes have continued post-divorce, sans Seal. The parties, after all, were her thing to begin with.
The model and the singer renewed their vows each year
Heidi Klum and Seal celebrated their anniversary every year with a wedding, renewing their vows a total of eight times. The annual ceremonies all had themes, like a wedding inspired by a traditional Hindu ceremony, a masquerade ball, and what media outlets referred to as a "trailer trash" wedding. That one featured Seal in a mullet wig and an American flag jacket while Heidi Klum donned cornrows and a lace jumpsuit as an Elvis impersonator married them, per Pop Sugar. "We love to renew our vows ... It's about remembering this moment of love we gave to each other and reinforcing it," Klum explained to Redbook (via People). Seal added, "It's a great party, but for about an hour, we go off on our own down to a private beach ... It's a very special moment to us."
Looking back, however, it turns out that Seal wasn't actually the biggest fan of the annual vow renewal. "It kind of turned into a little bit of a circus which I wasn't terribly fond of because by default I'm quite a private person," he told Andy Cohen on his Sirius XM radio show, via ET. In a 2021 interview with The Sunday Times (via People), Klum looked back on the eight weddings with less enthusiasm than she once did, saying, "I thought it would be a fest of love ... But you know, that doesn't work either. I tried, you can't say I didn't try!"
Why their reality series Love's Divine never took off
The Heidi Klum and Seal romance was so relevant in the first decade of the millennium that, like many celebrity couples at the time, a reality show based on their lives was in the works. Named after Seal's song, "Love's Divine," the series was supposedly going to air on Lifetime in 2010 and was inspired by their yearly vow renewal weddings. At the time, a source told People (via Access), "Heidi and Seal have been inspiring people with their idea of renewing their vows each year ... After getting positive feedback from family and friends, they decided they wanted to help others share the same kinds of special moments. For example, they want to help people who didn't have their dream wedding the first time around to get a second chance."
The series fizzled out, and now knowing what we know about Seal's true feelings on the vow renewal ceremonies, calling it a "circus" as previously mentioned, it seems likely that the "Crazy" singer didn't want to partake in the creation of the show, which would explain why it never made it past the pre-production phase.
Klum recorded a duet with Seal in 2007
In 2007, Heidi Klum made an appearance on Seal's album "System" on a duet called "Wedding Day." Seal wrote the song for Heidi, per People. Recalling their wedding day, Seal sings in the song, "Today, I give it all to you/ On this day we recall the memories/ Of what we're going through/ This day, we're gonna win it" and tells her "You're my girl, you're my, angel," (via Genius). The couple performed the song live during the 2007 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. On stage, they sang to each other while holding hands and ended the performance with an on-screen kiss.
While Klum's duet with Seal was her first foray in the music world, it hasn't been her last. In 2022, she put out a single with Snoop Dogg, though she admits singing is probably not her calling. "I've done a bit of singing before — on 'America's Got Talent' and once in the past with my ex-husband at a show, but putting out my own single is totally out of my comfort zone," she told The Sun.
They kept their marriage romantic for as long as possible
Due to the open discussions about their romantic life and the recurrent PDA, Heidi Klum and Seal gained the reputation for being one of the most passionate couples in Hollywood at the time."I have the most romantic husband," Klum gushed to Oprah in a 2007 interview (via People).
It certainly seemed like they knew how to keep the romance alive. Seal told People that whenever he went on tour, "She packs for me with beautiful notes in my luggage that I discover ... She's always doing sweet things." In addition to the love notes, he also explained, "We try and do a date night once a week. And we have vacations where we leave the kids with grandma and grandpa and go off and do our thing." Klum also revealed on "The Ellen Show" that she and Seal hung naked photos of themselves in their bedroom. That undying passion, however, seemed to ultimately die as both parties began to feel the seven-year itch.
Cheating rumors
Seal and Heidi Klum announced they were separating in a joint statement in 2012. Several months later, Klum was spotted getting romantic with her bodyguard, Martin Kristen. When TMZ stopped Seal in an airport to ask him about his thoughts on Klum's new romance, he said, "I would have thought that Heidi would have shown a little more class and at least waited until we separated first before deciding to fornicate with the help." His insinuating wording led to media outlets and gossip blogs reporting Klum had cheated on him.
"It's not true. I've never looked at another man while I was with him," Klum told Katie Couric (via HuffPost). Seal later clarified his comments in a statement through a rep that said, "he was not implying his wife was cheating on him while they were together." Instead, Seal claimed he was referring to the fact that they had not officially divorced yet. Their divorce was finalized two years later in 2014, per Billboard. Klum dated Kristen for over a year before breaking up.
Why Heidi Klum and Seal really split
While Seal and Heidi Klum never went into too much detail about their divorce, the real reason they split up had nothing to do with infidelity. When they first announced their separation, they simply stated "we have grown apart," per E! News. According to TMZ, it was Seal's anger issues that caused their relationship to disintegrate. But both Klum and Seal spoke of it as a gradual fallout. Seal explained to Ellen DeGeneres, "These things happen ... you just grow apart after a while. You try and you work through it and the thing that you quickly realize when you are married and you become a parent is that you do the best you can." He noted that they still loved each other, but in the end, it just felt like they were on different paths.
Klum's side of the story is similar. She has also made it clear that she wanted to make it work but inevitably realized the relationship had run its course. "I'm someone who believes in a fairy tale and when I said I do, I meant forever...But I don't know ... You never know what happens. Life changes. It's that road with all those bumps and holes and you're trying to struggle through them. And I don't know ... we just couldn't make it work," Klum told Katie Couric (via HuffPost).
Does the former couple get along today?
In recent years, the former couple has spoken less amicably about each other as they attempt to co-parent, both claiming the process been difficult. Seal told Us Weekly, "[Co-parenting] can be challenging ... it requires teamwork ... I never had that teamwork [with Klum]. We never had teamwork." Meanwhile, Klum told Red, "There's always a reason why you're not with someone any more, you know? ... It's not all rosy-rosy. It just isn't. So sometimes it's hard, but then you have to all come together as a family." Ultimately, they had to find a way to make it work for the sake of their children.
Klum is now married to Tokio Hotel guitarist Tom Kaulitz. She noted it was a difficult transition for her new husband to become a stepdad but told Us Weekly that he's doing a great job, adding, "I'm sure it's not easy to step into an immediate family, having all of a sudden four kids and teenagers. They were easier when they were younger, for sure." In 2021, Page Six reported that Seal was dating his former personal assistant, Laura Strayer, who had worked for him during his marriage with Klum.