Emmy Rossum Recalls Marrying 1st Husband After He Gave Her an Ultimatum
Emmy Rossum is looking back on her brief marriage to music producer Justin Siegel.
"I started dating Justin, and he worked at Interscope Records that I was signed to," Rossum, 39, recalled on the Wednesday, July 8, episode of Alex Cooper's "Call Her Daddy" podcast. "And we were dating for maybe a couple months. … We liked each other."
The Shameless star claimed Siegel, 44, gave her an ultimatum when she was offered a role in Dragon Ball Evolution, which filmed in Durango, Mexico.
"I remember the day that I was going away to make the movie, he said something to me like, ‘I don't know if the relationship is gonna survive the distance. So, like, maybe we should break up or get married,'" she continued. "Either break up or get married."
Rossum explained that after dealing with two "rough heartbreaks" from past relationships, she didn't want to experience "abandonment" again.
"My 21-year-old brain thought, you know, divorce doesn't seem that complicated. Like, it's probably pretty straightforward," she recalled. "And so he literally printed out a marriage contract online and got some guy on the internet to come over to my house. I found a white turtleneck that was in my closet and threw it on because I was like, ‘This is appropriate, right?'"
Rossum said it was her "intention" not to tell anyone about the marriage because she knew in her gut that it wasn't right.
Rossum and Siegel secretly tied the knot in February 2008. Their marriage only became public when Siegel filed for divorce in September 2009, citing irreconcilable differences.
"I think we were married for, oh, I was away for six months. When I got back, it became abundantly clear we weren't a match in any way," Rossum recalled on Wednesday, adding that she told her mom about the marriage when she and Siegel were separating. "I told my mom, ‘Hey, I'm breaking up with Justin, and I need a lawyer.' She was like, ‘You did not.' I was like, ‘I did.'"
Rossum and Siegel's divorce was finalized in December 2010. The actress later reflected on their split in an interview with InStyle Hair.
"Everyone messes up in relationships and has peaks and valleys in their personal lives," she told the publication in 2012. "When I realized it wasn't the end of the world and I would keep on standing, I knew it was going to be OK."
The following year, Rossum met her now-husband, director Sam Esmail, while working on his film Comet. The pair debuted their romance at the movie's premiere in June 2014 and got engaged in August 2015. Rossum and Esmail, 48, tied the knot in May 2017 and went on to welcome two kids, a daughter born in May 2021 and a son born in April 2023.
"We knew each other for about a year," Rossum recalled on Wednesday of the start of her romance with Esmail. "We developed the movie, went and found financing for the movie, put the movie together, he cast it. And then we had spent time together over that year. And I remember I started thinking about life through the lens of him. I would be eating a sandwich and I'd be like, ‘I wonder if Sam likes tuna.' Or I'd be like, you know, I drove past a museum and was like, ‘I wonder if Sam would like to see the Kubrick exhibit. I wonder if Sam would think that's funny.'"
Rossum continued, "I was so curious about him. And I had spent so long trying to find someone that I thought would understand me, when I realized maybe what I'm after is trying to find somebody I never want to stop trying to understand. Like, I was so fascinated by him."
Justin, meanwhile, is now married to Tiffany Marie Brannon Siegel.
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This story was originally published July 8, 2026 at 11:40 AM.