Inside Richard Gere's fascinating relationship history.  

In Hollywood baby news, Richard Gere and his wife Alejandra Silva have welcomed their first child together this week – a son.

According to Spanish magazine Hola!, the 69-year-old Pretty Woman actor and his 36-year-old wife became proud parents “a few days ago”.

 

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Algunas noches están hechas para disfrutarlas ¡Feliz lunes a todos y todas! ???? … Some nights are made to enjoy them! #Happymonday ????

A post shared by Alejandra Gere (@alejandragere) on Jan 28, 2019 at 6:36am PST

Gere and Silva – a Spanish human rights activist who is said to be part of the “Madrid’s glitterati” – announced they were expect in September last year on Instagram, sharing a since-deleted image of the Dalai Lama blessing Silva’s baby bump.

“A very special moment just a few minutes ago… Getting blessings for our precious to come,” Silva, who converted to Buddhism ahead of marrying Gere, wrote.

The announcement came after they tied the knot last April, Gere’s third marriage, following splits from supermodel Cindy Crawford and actress Carey Lowell – the mother of Gere’s 19-year-old son Homer.

It’s Silva’s second marriage; she was previously married to Govind Friedland, with whom she has a six-year-old son.

But while the couple are said to have started their relationship in 2014, they knew each other long before that.

The pair actually first met when Silva was a little girl and Gere was a friend of the family.

When they reconnected in 2014 at a hotel in Italy Silva was managing , it had been years since the pair had seen each other. They both instantly felt a “very strong connection”, according to Silva.

“Our karma was attracted the moment we saw each other,” she told Hola! in 2015. “I’m not ignoring our age difference and what it means to be with a Hollywood star, but when there’s such a strong karmic energy, the problems disappear.”

She also told the publication Gere sent her flowers until she agreed to go on a date with him, and that he "regularly writes her songs".

Silva isn't the first of Gere's wives with a significant age gap.

When Gere was married to supermodel Cindy Crawford between 1991 and 1995, she was 25 and he was 42, and their 17-year gap was believed to have contributed to the breakdown of the marriage.

"I didn't think I was young, though, but I was young," Cindy Crawford recalled during an appearance on Marc Maron's WTF podcast in 2016.

When questioned on her relationship with Gere now, she replied, “We’re friendly, but I think it’s almost like he’s gone back to being, like, ‘Richard Gere’ again, like a stranger, because we don’t really see each other that much.”

She continued, “I think part of the problem in our relationship was that we were a lot of other things, but I don’t know if we were ever friends – like peers, because I was young, and he was Richard Gere.

Seven years after he and Crawford parted ways, Gere married 58-year-old License to Kill actress Carey Lowell - a fellow Buddhist who shared Gere's deep interest in the culture of Tibet. They wed in a private ceremony at their home in New York with no family, friends or celebrities; only their children - Homer, who was two at the time, and Lowell's now-28-year-old daughter Hannah Dunne, who was 11.

During their years as a couple, they became co-owners of Bedford Post Inn in New York. An inn boasting 8 rooms, 22 restaurants, a yoga studio and a mediation centre.

After 10 years of marriage and 18 years together as a couple, they split due to "lifestyle differences", finalising their divorce in 2016 after a four-year settlement battle over Gere's reported $120m worth.

According to a source who spoke to the Mirror around the time of their separation in 2013, Gere preferred "peace and quiet" while Lowell preferred "being around people", which is what led to the marriage breakdown.

“They have a place in up state New York which Richard loves as it is so quiet and it brings him a lot of solitude," the source said.

“Carey likes being elsewhere in the limelight. She is very sociable and although very much respects what Richard likes she loves being around people.”

Fast-forward to now, Gere has said marrying Alejandra Silva last year made him "the happiest man in the universe" in an interview with Hola!.

The new parents are yet to reveal the name of their newborn son.