Danny DeVito has spent more than five decades making audiences laugh.

From Taxi and Twins to Matilda and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, his unmistakable personality has made him one of Hollywood’s most recognizable stars.

But at 81, DeVito is looking back at something far more personal than his movies.

He’s talking about Rhea Perlman — the woman he fell in love with more than half a century ago.

And their relationship today isn’t quite what many fans might expect.

DeVito and Perlman first met in 1971, when Perlman went to see a friend performing in an off-Broadway production that happened to feature DeVito.

After the show, they went out together.

Something clicked almost immediately.

“We hit it off,” DeVito recently recalled.

They shared a love of movies and theater and even began making little short films together.

“We had a lot in common, and we fell in love,” DeVito said.

The couple eventually married in 1982 and welcomed three children together: Lucy, Grace and Jacob.

Hollywood would come to know them individually as major stars.

DeVito became unforgettable as Louie De Palma on Taxi, while Perlman became one of television’s most beloved sitcom actresses as Carla Tortelli on Cheers.

They even shared the screen memorably as Harry and Zinnia Wormwood in the 1996 family favorite Matilda.

But behind the Hollywood success was a relationship that would eventually change.

DeVito and Perlman first separated in 2012 before reconciling. They separated again in 2017.

Yet something unusual happened afterward.

They never divorced.

Nearly a decade after their separation, they remain legally married — and they have continued to be an important part of each other’s lives.

DeVito recently revealed that they still talk every day and regularly get together for meals.

“We’re always over at her house,” he explained.

Their bond now also includes another generation.

The two spend time together with their grandchildren and continue gathering as a family.

“So that’s a good relationship,” DeVito said.

In another recent interview, DeVito went even further, describing Perlman and himself as “best of friends.”

Although they live separately, he said she lives nearby and that the connection they’ve had since the beginning remains.

For longtime fans, there is something touching about where their story ultimately landed.

This isn’t the conventional Hollywood ending.

They aren’t living together as husband and wife.

But they didn’t erase more than five decades of history either.

Instead, the young couple who once went to movies together, made little films and dreamed about acting are still talking about movies, acting, their children and their family all these years later.

DeVito has said that family and dependable friendships have become some of the most important things in his life.

And at 81, the woman he met during a small off-Broadway production in 1971 is still part of that world.