The Nanny star gave an update on her dating life when recently asked about her “friend with benefits” situation first reported in 2020.
“I have a little rotation,” the actress told Page Six at the Cinema Society screening of The Friend this week.
The SAG-AFTRA president scoffed at the reporters’ surprise. “I’m Fran Drescher!” she replied. “What do you think?!”
Drescher added that she remains “very close” with her ex-husband, Nanny co-creator Peter Marc Jacobson, whom she divorced and who came out as gay. As a result, she suggested that she’s not at a place in her life where she wants to commit to a serious relationship.
Fran Drescher warns LGBTQ stories in film are at risk due to strikes and spread of ‘hate and fear’
The actress also said she’s still working on the Broadway musical version of The Nanny that was announced in 2020, noting the multiple unforeseen circumstances that have led to its delay. “We’re going to resurrect it, but between the [actors’] strike, my dad passing away [in 2024], and now the Palisades fires, which impacted my house … there’s only so much I can do,” she said. “You have to be in the right frame of mind.”
Fran Drescher, President, SAG-AFTRA arrives at the 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on February 23, 2025 in Los Angeles,
Fran Drescher at the 2025 Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Maya Dehlin Spach/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty
Drescher has been splitting her time between Beverly Hills and New York City. Her Pacific Palisades home is “still standing,” she said, “but it’s not livable, and the neighborhood is not livable.”
She added that she’s “owning” the challenges of the past few years. “I don’t try to hide it,” she said. “I’m very gentle with myself. I share what I’m going through, and I keep it very small with people that I feel very safe with, and over time it gets better.”
Fran Drescher is ready for a Nanny reunion (and maybe more) ahead of sitcom’s 30th anniversary
Drescher addressed the difficulties of leading the actors’ union through the prolonged 2023 strike in an essay for Entertainment Weekly at the end of that year. “On a personal level, the more complicated my life became, the simpler my entertainment was required to be,” she wrote. “I had zero bandwidth for any more stress, or intensity, or negativity — so the things that I watched were limited to a level of entertainment that I didn’t find upsetting. Gregorian chant music, my Buddhist wisdom, The Great British Baking Show, Somebody Feed Phil, and, of course, The Nanny all became the equivalent of twirling my hair, sucking my thumb, and curling up in a fetal position.”
Fran Drescher sports her iconic rainbow Moschino vest from The Nanny 22 years later
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The actress also called for artists to pursue more uplifting work in the future. “As everyone gets back to creating again, I would love there to be fewer dystopian stories being told that create fear and hopelessness, when we can use this incredible collaborative art form to inspire humanity into a more empathetic, hopeful, and interconnected truth,” she wrote. “We all need more of that in our lives.”
