Courteney Cox reflects on not being with partner Johnny McDaid for over 200 days amid pandemic

Courteney Cox has reflected on what it has been like to be separated from her partner Johnny McDaid for more than 200 days during the coronavirus pandemic.

Friends star Cox and McDaid, who is a member of bands Snow Patrol and Vega4, first started dating in 2013.

After announcing their engagement in 2014, last year Cox announced that they were no longer engaged, although they are still together.

In March, Northern Irish musician McDaid travelled to the UK shortly before lockdown was imposed across California, where Cox is based.

During a recent appearance on musician Foy Vance’s podcast The Vinyl Supper, Cox spoke about how she has been keeping herself busy in his absence.

“At first I was like, what do I do with myself? I ended up – I cook every day. I’ve learned to cook so many more things,” the 56-year-old said.

“Let's say it's been 150 days – I've cooked 145 of them. And I haven't seen John in that many days. He left, [and] on the next day the whole country shut down – or at least California did, maybe New York was before us.”

Cox and Vance, who are friends, spoke about how pre-pandemic, Cox would often invite people over on a Sunday, a weekly occurrence that she says she misses “a lot”.

“Sundays are different. I do miss the music part of it. I miss a lot of it,” she said.

Cox explained that earlier in the year, two of her friends were going to quarantine with her, to keep her and her 16-year-old daughter Coco company.

However, one of her friends became so ill that he had to be hospitalised and placed on a ventilator.

"They got here on a Friday – we'd been tested, we were all negative... But two days later, Kevin started feeling really tired and threw up and the next day he was like, 'I think I have a cold'," she said.

"Four days later he's in the hospital on a ventilator, almost dead.”

Cox added that her friend has “completely recovered”, describing the experience as one of the scariest things”.

“Now he's completely recovered, but that was one of the scariest things. I wouldn't even understand Covid-19 had it not been right here. It was scary,” she said.

On 24 July, Cox shared a post on Instagram showing a screenshot of her and McDaid video calling in celebration of his birthday, having been separated for more than 130 days at the time.

“It’s been 133 days since we were last together. Covid sucks. Happy Birthday J,” the actor wrote in the caption.

“I loved our lunch/dinner (LA/London time) zoom date today. I miss you madly.”

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