HUGH JACKMAN & SUTTON FOSTER BROADWAY AFFAIR SCANDAL

AFTER THE MUSIC MAN COSTARS' SHOCKING EXITS FROM LONG MARRIAGES, NEW DETAILS ARE EMERGING ABOUT THEIR SECRET ROMANCE.

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COSTARRING in Broadway's The Music Man, Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster developed a preshow ritual. "We call it carpet chat," she explained during a July 2022 appearance on Live With Kelly and Ryan during the production's yearlong run. "We hang out in my dressing room before every show and just catch up. Somehow we ended up sitting... maybe because my dressing room's a mess, we sit on the carpet... That's been one of the best parts of the whole thing, that I've made this wonderful new friend."

A friend and then some. Whispers of a romance surrounded the charismatic pair, escalating after Hugh, 56, and his wife, actress Deborra-lee Furness, 68, announced their separation after 27 years of marriage last year. Then when Sutton, 49, filed to divorce her second husband, Ocean's Eleven screenwriter Ted Griffin, 53, on Oct. 22, the secret was out. "It's hard not to see how they feel about each other," an insider tells Star. "Friends are saying Hugh and Sutton are obsessed with each other and can't stand to be apart."

MUTUAL AFFECTION

Their relationship started off innocent enough. "But over time it clearly became much more than friendship and people around them at the theater sensed it, too." That's not unusual among the theater crowd, adds the source. "It's a tight community and actors are thrown together through all the rehearsals and the performances, and then there are the get-togethers afterwards with the cast.