Rupert Sanders Praises Kristen Stewart In Pre-Affair Interview, Wife Liberty Ross Steps Out With New Man

Sanders and Stewart’s affair leaked on July 17 when Us Weekly published photos of the pair in a series of intimate embraces, but interviews with the director should have shed light on the scandal sooner. 

Speaking with British Vogue magazine, Sanders seemed to hint at his infatuation with his “Snow White” leading lady, Stewart.

“She’s got this masculine edge,” he told the magazine before their affair broke. “She’s like this beautiful tomboy or something.”

The 41-year-old director even reminisced with the magazine about the first time that he met the 22-year-old actress.

“She’d burnt her lower pelvis area, quite low down,” he said of their first encounter. “She was bandaging a bad burn there, in her very tight jeans, with a Camel clamped between her teeth. That was my very first image of her.”

“Snow White and the Huntsman,” the film that Kristen Stewart and Rupert Sanders met on, even featured his wife, model Liberty Ross. While Stewart played Snow White, Ross played her mother. 

“There’s a look they share,” Sanders said of the eventual two leading ladies in his life. “Kristen is almost like royalty the way she understands what she has to do, in the way that she has to learn to compartmentalize." As for his wife? Sanders continued, “Well, Lib’s quite ‘regal’ or something as well.”

When news broke of his affair with Stewart, Sanders did seem to have more to say about his wife, stating in a public apology, “I am utterly distraught about the pain I have caused my family. My beautiful wife and heavenly children are all I have in this world. I love them with all my heart. I am praying that we can get through this together.”

Despite his public apology post-affair, Ross, 33, seems to be enjoying her time away from her husband. 

The model was photographed getting close and holding hands with a mystery man while out in London earlier this week, while last week she was the talk of New York’s Fashion Week.  Ross strutted her stuff for the Alexander Wang Spring 2013 collection, catching eyes with her sharp cheek bones and slim figure in a windbreaker meets cut-out pencil skirt. 

As for whether Liberty Ross will be able to forgive her husband, and father of her two children, a source told Us Weekly that “It’s still too early to tell what will happen with them.”