Michelle Yeoh’s husband Jean Todt was not able to see her receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but no worries — he ran it by her first.
The actress, 64, told a crowd assembled for her Walk of Fame star ceremony in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Feb. 18 that her husband Todt, whom she married in 2023, was not able to attend the ceremony due to his travel schedule.
“Thank you for showing up and for standing beside me. For being part of my life in the quiet moments, not just the bright ones. Your presence is everything,” she said, in part, during her speech.
“To the fans around the world, to my Yeoh family — my brother and [his] beautiful wife surprised me, they came all the way from Malaysia yesterday. My husband, who is not here, because I gave him permission to go to India, and my Todt family, thank you all for surrounding me with love, for being my safe harbor and for helping me stay true to my own North Star.”
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Yeoh’s husband Todt is the former CEO of Ferrari. Though the pair married in 2023, their romance began nearly two decades earlier: the couple first met in 2004 and got engaged just one month after their first meeting. Then, 6992 days separated Yeoh and Todt from their engagement and actual wedding date in July 2023, as the couple noted in a wedding program distributed to their guests the day they tied the knot in Geneva.
“What we say is, ‘Every day should be a celebration.’ Why do we wait for a special day?” Yeoh told PEOPLE of their marriage in July 2025, shortly after the couple marked their second wedding anniversary.
“I am so blessed because he’s so supportive of what I do. I love my work. This is my passion. He never turns around and says, ‘You spend a lot of time away from me,’ which I have sometimes, but he’s very understanding,” she added at that time.
Yeoh noted in the interview that her own travel plans required her to be on a flight on the day of their anniversary.
Yeoh was celebrated at her Walk of Fame star ceremony by guest speakers Ang Lee, her director in the 2000 classic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Jon M. Chu, who directed her in 2018’s hit Crazy Rich Asians and the two-part adaptation of Wicked.
“Once I was a little girl from Malaysia, sitting under the vast sky, looking up at a single steady star and daring to believe I could follow it. And now there’s one on the ground,” she said in her speech.