How did Barry Diller and Diane Von Furstenberg meet? Relationship timeline explored as designer’s husband comes out as gay

Barry Diller, who is said to have met his wife Diane Von Furstenberg at a dinner party in the mid 1970s, has come out as gay after being married to the designer for twenty four years.

The revealation was made by Diller in his memoir, Who Knew, which hits stores on May 20, 2025, detailing the unique relationship he and Diane Von Furstenberg have shared over the past years.

More about Diane Von Furstenberg's relationship with husband, as Barry Diller comes out as gay in new memoir

Diane Von Furstenberg and Barry Diller's relationship spans over half a century. The couple met in 1974 at a dinner party that was also attended by Diane Von Furstenberg's first husband, Prince Egon Von Furstenberg, who was a member of the Italian nobility. Diane had a open marriage with Egon Von Furstenberg, who himself was very open about his bisexuality.

This allowed Diane and Barry Diller to develop a friendship. They remained close friends but soon began dating while she was still legally married to Egon. In a 2008 interview with The Independent, Diane Von Furstenberg recounted how they met and recounted why their eventual relationship was abruptly paused. She said:

"We met 32 years ago, lived together and fell in love, and then I left him, very abruptly. But he was always there somehow, even though I was having other relationships, and we always thought, maybe, one day, we would get married. It was something we said we would do when we got old. "

She further added that after they got back together, the decision to marry came as sort of a birthday gift to Diller, and the ceremony was attended by Diane Von Furstenberg's two children from her first marriage.

"And then one day it was his birthday and I didn't know what to give him – so I said, 'If you want, I will marry you for your birthday.' So we went to City Hall with my children and my brother and we got married."

In his memoir, Who Knew, Barry Diller, who is currently the Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC, a position he has held since 2010, recounts that there has always been speculations about his sexuality. But those subsided when people saw how he and Diane Von Furstenberg were around each other. An excerpt, which was published in New York Magazine, reads:

"Much of the speculation subsided when it was clear to all we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We weren’t particularly conventional characters, and were so demonstrably in love both inside and outside the house.”

In his memoir, Diller writes very highly of Diane Von Furstenberg, saying:

"While there have been a good many men in my life, there has only ever been one woman, and she didn't come into my life until I was 33 years old,"

In a 2012 interview with Harper Bazar, Diane Von Furstenberg reminisced about meeting Barry Diller when she was twenty eight years, and spoke about the intense passion between the them. She said:

"I met Barry when I was 28 years old and he was 33. And you know, it was real passion and completely unexpected on his side and my side. It was very, very violent passion, and we stayed together. He was bicoastal, but we lived together in New York, and five years later we separated. I wanted to live my independent life, and we both did. But we were always in each other's lives, in that we were always there for each other."

She further added:

"Then 26 years later, we got married, and so now it feels like we have always been together, yet we have not always been together. It's in no way an example of anything. It's just life, you know? But now I realize how lucky I am. I married at 22, and I married at 54."

In the interview, Diane Von Furstenberg further emphasized that both the times she married, was for love. She said:

"I don't know. I didn't think marriage was ever important to me, and that's why I'm so surprised that I ended up marrying twice. And yet I married twice out of love for love."

Barry Diller in his memoir, further reflects on the reason it took him so long to officially come out. He writes:

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"I'd conquered other phobias, but fear of exposure still had a tyrannical hold on me, so much so that it stunted any chance of my having a fulfilling personal life. Instead, I had discovered I could separate myself from anything painful or terrifying by just locking it away, putting it into a distant box, and having to deal with it hopefully never."

Despite coming out as gay in his new memoir, Barry Diller writes that he continues to enjoy a "unique and complete love" with Diane Von Furstenberg.

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