Antonio Banderas’ Girlfriend Nicole Kimpel Loves Him for Who He Is! Facts About Their Romance

The Mask of Zorro star Antonio Banderas and his girlfriend, Nicole Kimpel, are still going strong after nearly a decade together! The couple seem more in love than ever and have shared sweet glimpses of their relationship with fans.

The pair first began dating in 2014 after his split from Working Girl actress Melanie Griffith. Antonio actually credited Nicole for saving his life in 2017 after he suffered a heart attack.

“The night before that I had this event, my girlfriend, she had a headache, and we didn’t have anything in the house. So, she went out to buy something, a painkiller or whatever,” he recalled on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “[Nicole] bought this aspirin, which is the only thing that she found, and she found the maximum one, I think it was five milligrams.”

“She got some water, some other stuff and at the time that she was at the cashier to pay, the girl that was working there, she said, ‘You just dropped that thing over there,’ and it was the aspirin,” he continued. “The next morning, when I started having the symptoms and I clearly knew what was going on, she put one of those aspirins inside of my tongue and that saved my life.”

The Once Upon a Time in Mexico star was incredibly grateful for his second chance at life after his near-death experience.

“Things that I gave a lot of importance [to] stopped being important,” he said. “You put attention to the real things. My daughter is the real thing, my friends, my family and my vocation as an actor. In a way, this is very, it’s probably stupid to say this, but it’s probably one of the best things that happened in my life.”

Since that harrowing experience, he and Nicole have only grown closer together. Her Instagram page is full of sweet photos together and snapshots of the pair celebrating big occasions. For their eighth anniversary in May 2022, the duo enjoyed a lavish vacation full of romantic surprises. They posed on a bed covered in balloons and sipped on champagne to mark their huge relationship milestone. The pair later attended the Oscars together in March 2023.

Scroll below to see five interesting facts about Antonio and Nicole’s relationship!