Jim Carrey recalls his short-lived relationship with Renée Zellweger fondly twenty years after they dated.

They met on the set of Me, Myself, and Irene in 1999 and dated for a year before splitting up in 2000. Carrey apparently refers to Zellweger, 51, as his “last great love” in his new book Memoirs and Misinformation: A Novel, in an interview on The Howard Stern Show.

Carrey claims that a lot of what he wrote is based on truth, including what he mentioned about Zellweger, despite the fact that the book isn’t a true memoir and is, in fact, a work of fiction.

“You have poetic license because it’s fiction,” Stern said, “but you’re saying, ‘Man, the great love of my life was Renee Zellweger’ and that was quite some time ago, and it was almost like you were saying I shouldn’t have fucked that up. That was the one, whatever happened, the one that got away.”

Carrey responded, “That’s true and she was special to me, very special. I think she’s lovely.”

Carrey stated he doesn’t “regret” how the relationship ended when Stern asked whether he thought about it.

“I don’t regret it,” he said, “I don’t have those things. But I do appreciate the people that have come through my life for the good that they gave me… but I don’t pine for anybody, it’s not that kind of situation. It’s just my way of saying, ‘There was a very important thing there,’ and to recognise that.”

Carrey told Entertainment Weekly at the time that his romance with Zellweger helped him stay grounded.

“She’s a very connected person. She thinks having a good time is renting a U-Haul and taking furniture to Texas. She’s real in that way and I absolutely love it,” Carrey stated.

According to Zellweger, it wasn’t love at first sight, but their connection heated up after filming concluded and reports of their affair began to circulate.

“I liked him a lot,” Zellweger said at the time, “but you’re not going [to the set] for the love connection.” “When the picture wrapped, we’d spoken a couple of times on the phone and then all those rumors came out that I was dating him. I was so mad. I said, ‘No, it’s not true.’ And then I went home … and I went, ‘God, I do miss him.’”

Despite engagement rumors (which Zellweger subsequently denied), the couple split up in 2000, with a representative explaining they “wanted different things.”

From 2005 to 2010, Carrey dated Jenny McCarthy, the late Cathriona White in 2012, and actress Ginger Gonzaga more recently in 2019. The two have since split.