Aaron Taylor-Johnson Says He Knew He Was "Going To Be A Young Father" And "Have Many Kids"

The internet hasn't been too kind to Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 33, and his wife Sam, 56. The couple's notorious age gap of 23 years has even had people asking Ariana Grande to mess things up between them.

In case you didn't already know, Taylor-Johnson first met his wife on the set of Nowhere Boy, which she directed. The actor was around 18, while his then-boss was 41 years old. When people discovered that she had the young Aaron audition at her house due to his busy schedule, theories of "grooming" went haywire. TikTokers made endless assumptions about the couple's relationship, with many insinuating that Taylor-Johnson was manipulated by Sam.

In a recent interview with Esquire, Taylor-Johnson went candid about falling in love with his wife. "Yeah, we worked – I met Sam as actor and director. I think we’re really great at collaborating. But that’s not why I fell in love with her," he said, adding how he knew right away when he met Sam and even before that (when he was around 10 or 11) that he would be a young dad. “I was going to have a big family. I knew I was going to be a young father. I knew I was going to have many kids.”

One year after the duo revealed they were dating, Taylor-Johnson proposed, and Sam became pregnant a month after. She gave birth to their first child, Wylda Rae, in September 2010. Surprisingly, the young actor wasn't nervous about becoming a young dad since he was already a step-father to Sam's two kids (Jessie and Angelica) from her previous marriage to Jay Jopling. She and Taylor-Johnson gave birth to their second daughter, Romy Hero, in 2012. They got married that same year.

Esquire's interviewer, Alex Pappademas, claimed that, at some point, Taylor-Johnson put up a wall, and they no longer talked about Sam. “I’m trying to be as honest as possible,” the actor explained. “I’ve probably talked to you more about my kids and Sam than I have with anybody. I’ve got really nothing to hide, and I’m secure in what we have. But I’m not going to unlock things that are actually precious to me.” Given the amount of negative comments the star receives on posts of him and Sam on social media, it makes sense why he'd want to keep their relationship private from further scrutiny.

Here's the thing, though – Taylor-Johnson is no longer a teenager. He's a grown man now and can make his own choices. We don't know exactly what happened between them in 2010, and chances are we'll never know. While I'm not a fan of large-gap relationships, I think the bullying and toxic assumptions about their marriage are getting out of hand. Imagine what their kids think when they read comments from people saying that their mother had groomed their dad. Picture their daughters seeing rude messages from anonymous online personas calling their mom a "grandma."

I'm not worried about Taylor-Johnson. I believe he's more than capable of making sound judgments now – I worry about his kids and the hurtful words they see online about their family.

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