Elizabeth Gilbert Opens Up About Leaving Her Husband for Her Best Friend

"Eat, Pray, Love" author explains her decision.

ByABC News
September 28, 2016, 4:37 PM

— -- Elizabeth Gilbert wants fans to know that she's not having a midlife crisis, despite ending her second marriage after falling in love with her longtime best friend.

"Now I've just left another marriage, it's starting to look irresponsible and people are saying I'm having a midlife crisis, and 'What is she doing?'" Gilbert said in a Facebook Live chat Tuesday.

"All I'm doing is telling the truth, again, and again, and again. In a way that says, 'This isn't working for me, I have to do this now,'" she said.

Earlier this month, the "Eat, Pray, Love" author, 47, announced that she was ending her nine-year marriage to Jose Nunes after realizing her "true feelings" for author, musician and hairstylist Rayya Elias, her friend for 15 years.

At the time, Gilbert, whose latest book is "Big Magic," wrote, "I need to live my life in truth and transparency, even more than I need privacy, or good publicity, or prudence, or other people's approval or understanding, or just about anything else."

She also shared that Elias is battling "pancreatic and liver cancer -- a disease for which there is no cure" and that she went straight to Elias' side and has been there ever since.