What keeps a couple with a 20-year age gap together for more than 15 years, through 2 children and a 10-year engagement, without a wedding? Jason Statham was born on July 26, 1967, and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was born on April 18, 1987. They have been a couple since early 2010 and engaged since January 2016, and each of them had a working career of their own before they met.
From Competitive Diving to Film
Statham’s first career was in sport. He spent about a decade as a competitive diver and represented England at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand. He finished 8th in the 1-meter springboard and 11th in both the 3-meter springboard and the 10-meter platform, and he took part in the British trials for the 1988 and 1992 Olympics without making either team.
He has said that falling short in sport probably helped him take acting more seriously. Before acting he worked as a model for the clothing brand French Connection and appeared in an Erasure music video in 1994. Through French Connection he was sent to audition for Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and he played Bacon in the 1998 film. The Transporter in 2002 made him a lead in action films.
Statham’s Career During the Relationship
Most of his biggest releases came after the two began dating in 2010, and the tracking site Box Office Watch counts about $4.86 billion in worldwide ticket sales across 21 of his films. Furious 7, in which he played Deckard Shaw, earned about $1.5 billion worldwide in 2015, and the spin-off Hobbs & Shaw earned about $760 million in 2019. The Beekeeper in 2024 was smaller, at about $162 million worldwide, and A Working Man followed in 2025.
Modeling Contracts Before Statham
Huntington-Whiteley grew up in Plymouth, in Devon, and her profile rose quickly in 2008, when Burberry’s creative director Christopher Bailey cast her in the brand’s autumn and winter campaign, photographed by Mario Testino. In November 2009, at 22, she was named a Victoria’s Secret Angel, and Marie Claire described her as the first British model to hold the title.
Accounts of how she and Statham met differ. Some place their first meeting in Barcelona in 2007 and others at a party in London in 2009, but the sources agree that they were dating by early 2010.
Her Own Record and Her Choice of Partner
Age-gap relationships start for many reasons, from shared work to mutual friends to simple attraction. When Huntington-Whiteley met Statham, Burberry had already cast her and Victoria’s Secret had already named her an Angel, so this wasn’t a situation where someone would date a sugar daddy.
In 2013 she told Glamour that the two of them had “a connection that has nothing to do with age.” Love is the reason she gives for staying, and she has said there is “a lot of love and fun and humor” between them.
Work Beyond Modeling
Her work with Marks & Spencer began with the retailer’s autumn and winter campaign in 2011, alongside the actor Ryan Reynolds. In 2012 she moved into design with Rosie for Autograph, a 33-piece lingerie range priced from £12.50 for knickers to £65 for a silk kimono, which was reported to be the fastest-selling lingerie line in the retailer’s history. She continued to work with the M&S design team on later seasons.
Her acting career began in 2011, when she took over the lead female role in Transformers: Dark of the Moon after Megan Fox left the franchise. Her character, Carly Spencer, was written as a new one for the film. In 2015 she played The Splendid Angharad, one of the 5 wives who escape the warlord Immortan Joe, in Mad Max: Fury Road.
She launched Rose Inc as an editorial beauty website in May 2018, and in August 2021 it became a cosmetics brand, with 9 makeup and skin-care products sold in the United States through Sephora, along with brushes and reusable cotton pads. Outside the United States it went on sale at retailers including Space NK and Mecca. The brand was developed with the biotechnology company Amyris. She also worked as fashion director for FWRD, the online retailer owned by Revolve Group. When Amyris filed for bankruptcy in August 2023, Rose Inc was sold at auction to the Hong Kong investment firm AA Investments for $2.5 million, and in 2024 she announced that she was no longer involved with the brand, citing major changes within the business.
Children and a Long Engagement
The couple became engaged in January 2016. Their son, Jack Oscar Statham, was born on June 24, 2017, and their daughter, Isabella James Statham, was born on February 2, 2022.
As of late 2025 the two were still engaged and had not married. Huntington-Whiteley has said that neither of them is in a rush to marry and that they would prefer something low-key when they do.
In 2020 the family moved to London after a decade in Los Angeles. In a 2025 interview with The Times, she said the move had been part of the plan from the start, that the couple wanted their children to grow up with British accents, and that Statham’s parents live nearby and see the children most days. She has described him as a very involved father and called him the human playground, since he is constantly carrying the children on his back.
Her Account of the 20 Years Between Them
When they began dating in early 2010 she was 22 and he was 42, and by the end of 2025 she was 38 and he was 58. She has described the relationship in modest terms. In a Sunday Times interview she said, “We take each day as it comes,” and that the two of them try to make it work. In the earlier Glamour interview, she named the knowledge and strength that can come with a man who has lived a little longer as part of what drew her to him.
A Partnership of Two Careers
In plain terms, the relationship is a 15-year partnership between a former Commonwealth Games diver who became an action star and a model who went on to design lingerie and found a cosmetics brand. They have 2 children, who were 8 and 3 at the end of 2025, and a 10-year engagement, and both of their careers began before the relationship did. Asked in interviews why it has lasted, Huntington-Whiteley has put love at the center of her answer.
