Actress Anjelica Huston, 69, has opened up about the difficulties and heartbreaks she experienced during her relationship with actor Jack Nicholson, 83, in her memoir, Watch Me.

The couple met in 1973 at a party at Nicholson’s home, and their on-again, off-again relationship lasted for 17 years.

Huston, the daughter of legendary film director John Huston, began her career as a model and had already been used to attractive men around her. However, she couldn’t deny Nicholson’s charm.

In the early stages of their relationship, Nicholson canceled a date with her due to a previous obligation which turned out to be a person, his ex-girlfriend, Mamas & the Papas singer Michelle Phillips.

During a Carole King concert in Central Park in 1973, Huston felt jealous and hurt when Joni Mitchell “sat on the ground between Jack’s legs throughout the show.”

When she confronted him, he dismissed her concerns, saying “Come on she’s just an old friend,” rolling his eyes and ignoring her tears.

Huston’s friend Apollonia van Ravenstein, a model, told her that she had had a physical relationship with Nicholson.

When she asked him about it, he said, “Oh, Toots, it was just a mercy f—. That was the first time I’d heard copulation described as an act of compassion.”

Huston said, “Not that he’d ever vowed to be faithful to me, but somehow he thought it was an acceptable answer.”

Nicholson was also possessive and generous in gifting. He repeatedly told Huston that he did not want to get married.

In 1975, Huston found notes from a girl “saying how much she missed Jack and how tender their lovemaking had been and how she couldn’t wait to hear from him again.”

Unable to cope with his infidelity any longer, she broke up with him and started dating Ryan O’Neal.

Huston went back to Nicholson, but he did not change his ways.

By the late 1980s, the couple was not together full-time anymore, but it wasn’t until 1990 that Huston felt the final blow.

Nicholson told her that he was having a baby with another woman who was 12 years younger than him.

Soon, she saw an article in Playboy Magazine that quoted a young woman’s intimate relationship with Nicholson.

Huston went to Nicholson’s office at Paramount Pictures and attacked him. “He was coming out of the bathroom when I attacked him,” she writes.

“I don’t think I kicked him, but I beat him savagely about the head and shoulders. He was ducking and bending, and I was going at him like a prizefighter, raining a vast array of direct punches.”

In a podcast interview with Alec Baldwin, Huston said, “He was too easily distracted. I can’t say I enjoyed him all that much.”

“I spent a lot of time in tears and a lot of time crying when I was with Jack, a lot of the time feeling slighted or I wasn’t getting enough attention from him.

“I always knew that I wasn’t the most important thing in Jack’s life.”

Not all relationships are meant to last, and some people end up hurting their partner, who has faith in them.

Huston’s relationship with Nicholson was tempestuous and filled with heartbreaks, and she had to endure a lot of pain throughout their 17 years together.