Meg Ryan has praised Russell Crowe for keeping the details of her marriage to Dennis Quaid to himself under heavy fire from the media.

Crowe had been accused of being a home wrecker after he met and fell for Ryan on the set of Proof of Life, and comforted her through the pain of her divorce with Quaid, though Ryan revealed that the marriage was in trouble long before she met Crowe.

Although Crowe was often demonized by the media for his part in the break-up of her marriage, Meg Ryan told of how grateful she is to him for never commenting on the status of her marriage before they met.

She said: "It was a very unhealthy marriage and it was pretty much not a happening marriage for a very long time. I probably should have left much earlier.

"I'm very sad that it all had to come apart in the way that it seemed to have. It was never about another man, it was only about my and Dennis' relationship just couldn't sustain.

"He (Crowe) wasn't a home-wrecker and he took a lot of heat for that and he had a lot of grace, frankly, about not talking about things that he knew were going on in my marriage and I'll be very grateful for him for a long time for that.

"Divorce is an impossibly hard transition in your life and he was there for a few months."