Woody Harrelson Hired Laura Louie As His Assistant In 1987. They’ve Been In Each Other’s Lives Ever Since

Harrelson and Louie walked the Hammer Museum red carpet Thursday for the premiere of his new Apple TV+ series Brothers, 39 years after he first hired her off the bleachers at a Cheers taping in 1987.

A UCLA student visiting the set with a media workshop, she raised her hand when he asked the studio audience if anyone had secretarial skills. He invited her to his Marina del Rey place the next day, played Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding,” talked to her for hours, and hired her on the spot. She was so effective that other Cheers cast members started hiring assistants of their own. She worked for him for three years before it turned into anything else.

The romance started around 1990, after a trip to Africa. He came home, wrote her a song (“I’m only 28, but I’m bored with everything I do / I’ve got nothing when I’m not next to you”), took her up to his house on Mulholland, and played it for her. Her reply: “Woody, I’ve been in love with you for the last two and a half years.” His: “What about the other six months?!” He has said for years that she was the one who made long-term commitment make sense to him. “I just was incapable of long-term relationships,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017. “I was with whoever would have me. Then I met my wife.”

They dated for roughly 18 years and had three daughters, Deni Montana, Zoe Giordano, and Makani Ravello, before marrying on a Maui beach on December 28, 2008. Harrelson has said the food and drinks ran about $500. Willie Nelson, Sean Penn, and Owen Wilson were there. Alanis Morissette performed. Louie, a UCLA grad in business management and environmental science, co-founded the organic-food company Yoganics and keeps the family’s Maui life mostly out of view.

Their friendship with Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves stretches back to EDtv in 1999, where Harrelson and McConaughey played on-screen brothers, and the two couples still turn up together, most recently at the US Open last week.

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