Michelle Williams and Phillips first met on the set of Dawson’s Creek way back in 2000 – and have been “forever friends” ever since.

“She’s proof that the love of your life does not have to be a man,” Williams previously said of Phillips.

And now, in a new interview, the All The Money In The World actress has revealed that the pair experienced a true ‘love at first sight’ connection.

Speaking to People magazine, Williams explained: “Someone had said, ‘when you two meet, there is going to be a chemical reaction.’ I had been really excited for this girl to land in Wilmington [North Carolina].

“She was so beautiful and cool. She wore overalls and her hair was in braids and she was so real, tough and funny. 

“We became inseparable and I fell in love with her.”

Williams added that she isn’t sure “what or who” she would be if she had never met her pal.

“I said to her recently, ‘you have really saved me from ever being lonely because you are always right there’. We are so close and can tell each other everything. I don’t know what I would be or who would be without Busy.”

Phillips, similarly, wrote of Williams on Instagram: “I’ll tell you a line that’s in my book …

“‘Michelle is a very easy person to fall in love with. Anyone who really knows her will tell you that. And probably anyone who barely knows her would say that, too.’”

The importance of their friendship was made abundantly clear when, earlier this year, Phillips booked an airplane ticket and flew to be with Williams on the 10-year anniversary of Heath Ledger’s death.

She later shared a selfie of herself with her former Dawson’s Creek co-star.

“It’s OK,” Philipps wrote alongside the picture, which showed Williams leaning on her shoulder with her eyes closed.

Ledger and Williams fell in love after meeting on the set of their 2005 film Brokeback Mountain and welcomed daughter Matilda in October 2005.

They separated in September 2007, but remained firm friends until his death. And Williams has credited Phillips for helping her through that difficult period in her life on numerous occasions – and we don’t doubt it. Studies have shown that our girlfriends may play a far greater role in our lives than we might imagine, with research showing that those chats with your girlfriends are vital to your health and may well help prolong your life.

Shelley E. Taylor, author and a world-renowned expert on stress and health, tells Positively Beautiful that women are genetically hard-wired for friendship as a means of coping with stress, theorising that a common female stress response is what she calls “tend and befriend.”

Taylor adds that our evolutionary heritage suggests women who formed strong bonds with one another were more apt to survive and that, over time, women have learned to turn to one another for support and solace and have thus become crucial to one another in times of stress.

This may have something to do with the fact that oxytocin, known as a calming hormone, is released during stress, enhancing the ability to nurture and be nurtured.

“Because oestrogen increases oxytocin’s effects, it’s likely to be more important in women’s stress response than men’s,” Taylor says.

All hail the power of female friendship!

Images: Rex Features