Eat, Pray, Love True Story: What Happened To Elizabeth After The Movie - Screen Rant

Eat, Pray, Love introduced viewers to Elizabeth Gilbert and took them on a journey to three spots around the world, but what happened to the real Elizabeth after the events of the movie? Back in 2006, Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia was published, which chronicles the author’s trip around the world after her divorce and the things she learned and discovered in the process. The book was a big success, and it didn’t take long for the movie rights to be purchased by a big studio (in this case, Columbia Pictures).

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The movie adaptation of the book, simply titled Eat, Pray, Love, was released in 2010, and starred Julia Roberts as Elizabeth. The story follows Elizabeth, a journalist who leaves her modern and seemingly easy life behind to go on a one-year journey around the world where she visits three places that teach her very valuable life lessons: Italy, where she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment; India, where she learns the power of prayer; and India, where she finds inner peace and balance as well as love, though that last one is completely unexpected. Although the movie didn’t have the same impact and success with critics as the book did, it was well-received by the audience and praised for Robert’s performance and the amazing scenarios from each country.

The last spot Elizabeth visits is Bali, Indonesia, where she befriends an advisor named Ketut Liyer (Hadi Subiyanto) and meets Felipe (Javier Bardem), a Brazilian businessman with whom she has a turbulent first meeting, but they soon begin to enjoy each other’s company. As Elizabeth continues to struggle with the concepts of marriage and commitment, her relationship with Felipe nears its end, but they overcome those obstacles and by the end of the movie, they begin a proper, formal relationship. While Eat, Pray, Love didn’t get a sequel, the book did get a follow-up titled Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, published in 2010, and it offered the audience an update on what happened after that trip to Bali.

In it, Gilbert explains that she and “Felipe” (whose real name is José Nunes) planned on resettling in the US and swore to not get married as they both went through really bad divorces. However, the US government wouldn’t allow Felipe to enter the country unless they got married, and so they overcame their fears of marriage and broke their promise so they could live together. Once in the US, they ran a large Asian import store until they sold it in 2015, and the following year, Gilbert announced her separation from Nunes. Later that year, Gilbert shared she was in a relationship with her best friend, Rayya Elias, as she realized her feelings for her following Elias’ terminal cancer diagnosis. They stay together until Elias’ death in 2018.

Gilbert also published other works after the events of Eat, Pray, Love, such as a cookbook written by her great-grandmother titled At Home on the Range, the novel The Signature of All Things, and the self-help book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, which focuses on overcoming self-doubt and avoiding perfectionism, among other topics. Although there’s a real-life Elizabeth Gilbert whose life offers an answer to what happened to her after the events of Eat, Pray, Love, there’s some freedom for viewers to come up with their own ending when it comes to the Elizabeth from the movie, as there’s no follow up to that version.

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About The Author

Adrienne Tyler (1965 Articles Published)

Adrienne Tyler is a features writer for Screen Rant. She is an Audiovisual Communication graduate that wanted to be a filmmaker, but life had other plans (and it turned out great). Prior to Screen Rant, she wrote for Pop Wrapped, 4 Your Excitement (4YE), and D20Crit, where she was also a regular guest at Netfreaks podcast. She was also a contributor for FanSided's BamSmackPow and 1428 Elm. Adrienne is very into films and she enjoys a bit of everything: from superhero films, to heartbreaking dramas, to low-budget horror films. Every time she manages to commit to a TV show without getting bored, an angel gets its wings.

When she's not writing, you can find her trying to learn a new language, watching hockey (go Avs!... But also Caps and Leafs), or wondering what life would have been like had Pushing Daisies, Firefly, and Limitless not been cancelled. Breakfast food is life and coffee is what makes the world go round.

Guillermo del Toro said “hi” to her once. It was great.

"Vänligheten är ett språk som de döva kan höra och de blinda kan se".