Celebrity relationships aren't known for their longevity, but some power couples
do manage to survive for the long run, even without getting formally
hitched. Here are 15 of our favorite long-term but still unmarried twosomes.
Let's start with the ultimate example of a successful long-term Hollywood relationship
between two committed partners who have famously chosen not to wed,
Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. The couple met in 1966 while filming the movie The One and Only,
Genuine, Original Family Band. Nothing happened between the two
for one big reason. While Hawn was 21 at the time, Russell was only 16.
It would be a decade and a half before this iconic couple started their love affair,
after meeting again in 1983 at an audition. On an episode of the talk show Harry,
Kurt confessed that the pair slept together on their first date and,
hilariously, that they were interrupted by the police.
"Cop-us interruptus, I guess."
They'd broken into the home Hawn was renovating.
Hawn and Kurt have now been together for four decades, and they have a child together,
hockey player-turned-actor Wyatt Russell. And Kurt is regarded as a father figure
by Hawn's two other children, actors Kate and Oliver Hudson. While Hawn and Kurt make magic
together onscreen — Overboard is a classic — it's their close family and sweet love for
each other that we most admire. As Hawn once said on the British talk show Loose Women,
"I mean, we've been married before. It didn't work. So why do it again?"
It takes a strong person to be able to make a life with a celebrity as famous
as Oprah Winfrey. Luckily for her, she found Stedman Graham, an accomplished businessperson,
author, and speaker. Winfrey and Graham first met in 1986 and the
rest is history. The couple has been together for nearly four decades but has never married.
Despite never walking down the aisle, Graham and Winfrey are technically engaged. Graham
proposed in 1992. Throughout the 1990s and even into the early 2000s,
many speculated about when they would tie the knot, but people have all but given
up by now. Winfrey has made it clear that marriage is not important to her,
and that it's not really a topic of conversation for the couple. In 2017, she told Vogue,
"The only time I brought it up was when I said to Stedman, 'What would have happened if we had
actually gotten married?' And the answer is: 'We wouldn't be together.' We would not have
stayed together, because marriage requires a different way of being in this world."
Academy Award-winning actor Sam Rockwell has always walked to the beat of his own drum,
and that includes his stance on both marriage and parenthood. He once told The Guardian,
"I definitely don't want to become a parent. It's not my bag. [...] I think being an only
child means you learn to live in your own world. [...] but also, children are a lot of work."
That interview took place in 2007, and true to his word,
Rockwell has not had kids in the years since. He has, however, found love.
Rockwell met fellow actor Leslie Bibb at the famed Chateau Marmont toward the end of 2007.
While their love story began on the West Coast, they ended putting down roots in an East Village
loft in Manhattan. The two maintain a relatively private, low-key existence. And the life they
have built does not include any paperwork, despite speculation about marriage after Rockwell referred
to Bibb as his wife while on the 2018 awards circuit. They never go more than two or three
weeks without seeing each other, even when working on location, to ensure their continued closeness.
Many people still link Courteney Cox to her ex-husband David Arquette, since they
were such a visible couple and have remained good friends over the years. But the couple
have been divorced since 2013, the same year Cox met her current partner, Johnny McDaid. McDaid,
an Irish native, is a musician and a member of the band Snow Patrol. He's a staple on
Cox's Instagram, but the two have weathered a few bumps in the road on the way to bliss.
The pair were introduced by their mutual friend,
singer Ed Sheeran, and it got hot and heavy quickly.
"Everyone that Johnny comes in contact with he betters."
By April 2014, Cox and McDaid were living together, only eight or nine months into
their relationship. They announced their engagement in June of that year but broke
up in November 2015. But it took only months for Cox and McDaid to reunite, and things have been
relatively smooth sailing from there. In a 2019 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Cox said,
"We were engaged, and now we're just together. We broke off our engagement and he moved to
England. Then we got back together, and it's actually better than it was before."
And even though the COVID-19 pandemic drove an ocean-sized wedge between them,
Cox and McDaid wouldn't split up for a second time.
Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan have been together for a good chunk of their
adult lives. They first connected in 2007 at rehearsals for the off-Broadway play
Things We Want. In a 2012 interview with W magazine, Kazan explained,
"Even when Paul and I met five years ago,
we were doing a play together and falling in love and we kissed on stage before we had
ever kissed in real life. When we did kiss in real life, it felt totally different."
That off-stage kiss must have been pretty good, because the couple has lasted ever since.
Dano and Kazan welcomed a baby girl in 2018 and a son in late 2022. Though they have
built a beautiful life together, Dano and Kazan haven't expressed any desire to wed.
But if this pair were to walk down the aisle, we wouldn't be surprised
if they chose to keep it to themselves, given how notoriously private they are.
Mutual friends introduced actor Rose Byrne to her eventual partner, Bobby Cannavale, around
the time she was wrapping up a five-season run on the TV show Damages. Cannavale was previously
married to screenwriter Jenny Lumet, with whom he shares a son. He and Byrne made their public
debut at an event in December 2012 and walked their first red carpet together six months
later. They now share two children, sons Rocco Robin, born in 2016, and Rafael, born in 2017.
"Does the baby look more like one of you than the other?"
"He looks a little like Jeff Sessions."
Byrne and Cannavale have appeared in a variety of shared projects over the years,
including the film Annie and the miniseries Mrs. America.
Though they haven't wed, Byrne has occasionally referred to Cannavale
as her husband in interviews. In 2017, she told ES Magazine,
"He's practically my husband, so calling him that is easier."
In the same interview, Byrne said they would get married "one day"
because "why not?" Although here we are, years later, and there's still
no ring on that finger. In a 2021 interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Byrne said,
"I keep going, 'Let's get around to it, let's do it.' And then, you know,
you have a baby, and then, oh, there's another baby. I guess for us it's just been,
we didn't do it, we'll do it, then – no! Pandemic."
Though they've never married, many people assume that Maya Rudolph and Paul Thomas Anderson are
wed. Perhaps it's because of how long they have been together, or their baseball team of kids,
but it's also probably due to the fact that Rudolph has been known to refer to Anderson as
her "husband" when speaking about him. In a New York Times article from 2018, Rudolph admitted
that "boyfriend" didn't feel like the right term, and that she uses the h-word loosely, saying,
"People know what that means. It means he's the father of my child,
and I live with him, and we are a couple, and we are not going anywhere."
The Saturday Night Live legend has been with the 11-time Oscar nominee since
2001. Neither has shared the full story about how they first met. And they're
such low-key celebrities that we often forget they're a couple until they pop
up together at an awards show. The pair share four children — Pearl, Lucille,
Jack, and Minnie — all of whom made appearances in Anderson's film Licorice Pizza, alongside Rudolph.
"I do have four kids. And people have been asking me a lot, like,
'How do you do it all?' And I'm like, 'You're looking at it.'"
In an appearance on Late Night with Seth Myers, Rudolph explained,
"That was actually a magical thing, because COVID happened, lockdown happened and then
Paul was told like, 'Okay, you can shoot now. My kids, their friends, their friends' parents,
my parents, my nanny — we were all in it. We were all around and so we had a little world."
For years, rumors swirled that actor Tilda Swinton
was in a polyamorous relationship with two men —John Byrne and Sandro Kopp,
both of whom are artists. Swinton set the record straight in a 2010 interview with Bust magazine,
in which she explained her relationship with with former lover and continued close friend Byrne,
with whom she shares two children, she was only partnered with Kopp in the present, saying,
"For the last five years, I've been in another relationship. It's very boring and it's important
to rectify, because there's some fantasy about us all living in a big hut together."
Unfortunately, the rumors still abound. But Swinton doesn't seem
like the type to lose too much sleep over what others think about her or
her lifestyle. She's out there living her best life. Oh, and did we mention that
Kopp is nearly two decades Swinton's junior and super cute? Get it, Tilda.
When she was younger, Winona Ryder's love life was all over the tabloids. The actor's
highest profile relationship was with Johnny Depp, to whom she was engaged,
but she had plenty of other headline-grabbing boyfriends. Among others, Ryder has been linked
to big stars like Matt Damon, Christian Slater, Rob Lowe, and Beck. But these days,
Ryder is rather private with her personal life. We do know that she has a partner, though.
She's been photographed with her fashion designer boyfriend Scott Mackinlay Hahn on many occasions.
Ryder and Mackinlay Hahn first got together in 2011. Despite the longevity of their relationship,
the pair have decided not to walk down the aisle. Ryder has discussed her stance on marriage in the
past, most notably in a now-deleted 2016 interview with Net-a-Porter's The Edit, in which she said,
"I'd rather never have been married than been divorced a few times. Not
that there's anything wrong with divorce. [...] when your parents are madly in love for 45 years,
your standards are really high. But I've been happily with someone for quite a while now."
Seven years later, and the couple is still going strong.
A lot of words come to mind when we think of comedian Ricky Gervais,
but romantic is not one of them. However, despite his wise-cracking exterior,
Gervais has been in a relationship with his partner Jane Fallon for roughly two thirds
of his life. Gervais and Fallon met in 1982, when both were students at University College
London. Gervais has frequently affirmed that they are dearly devoted to one another
but refuse to marry and have no desire for children. In 2010, he told The Sunday Times,
"Just didn't fancy it. Too much hassle. Not something either of us wanted to do. We just [...]
didn't fancy dedicating 16 years of our lives. And there are too many children, of course."
Gervais and Fallon's lack of religious beliefs played
a big role in their stance. As Gervais explained,
"We are married for all intents and purposes, everything's shared and
actually our fake marriage has lasted longer than a real one. But there's no point in us
having an actual ceremony before the eyes of God because there is no God."
It may not be a popular opinion,
but it is straightforward and honest — the typical Gervais way of communicating.
Action star and full-on zaddy Jason Statham isn't legally married but is definitely off
the market. Statham began dating supermodel and actor Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in 2009,
after the pair hit it off at a London party. In an Instagram Q&A,
Huntington-Whiteley said that, despite their two-decade age difference:
"It was instant chemistry."
The couple got engaged in 2016, but they've chosen not to walk down the aisle, at least
not yet. Statham and Huntington-Whiteley have two children together. Their son, Jack Oscar,
was born in 2017, and their daughter, Isabella James, came along in 2022.
Marriage is still a possibility, if we're to believe Huntington-Whiteley,
who, in 2018, told Extra she thinks there will be a wedding someday,
but that they've been focused on their careers and then their son.
"We definitely talk about it. We're looking forward to that
time — but it's also not a huge priority to us. We're so happy."
We absolutely adore this couple — who just may be one of the sexiest pairings in
Hollywood — so we don't care if they marry or not, as long as they don't split up.
Comedian and actor Sandra Bernhard is anything but shy with her opinions, but the outspoken
star has never been one to discuss too much of her personal romantic life in interviews.
Other aspects of her life — like her friendship with Madonna or her Jewish roots or her liberal
ideals — have all received much attention over the decades. And Bernhard has always been rather
open about her bisexuality; it was even worked into her character's storyline on Roseanne.
"We went to all the singles dances together."
"Singles dances? I thought we were dating."
Still, less is known about her relationship with Sara Switzer,
despite them having been a couple for over 20 years.
Bernhard and Switzer met in the late 1990s, shortly after Bernhard gave birth to her daughter,
Cicely, whose father's identity is not publicly known. Switzer,
a former Harper's Bazaar editor, raised Cicely with Bernhard. And though same-sex marriage has
been legal in their hometown of New York since 2011, the two have never married.
As far as celebrities go, Canadian actor Evangeline Lilly has always been rather
private. She pops up from time to time to do press but maintains a life far away from the
glitz and glamor of Hollywood. And we mean that literally, since Lilly lives not in Los Angeles,
but in a gorgeous 1970s home in Hawaii. It makes sense, since Lilly rose to fame after
starring on the show Lost, which was filmed on the island of Oahu. That's where Lilly met her
partner, Norman Kali, who was a production assistant on the Lost set for 47 episodes.
Lilly and Kali have two children — son Kahekili and another son whose name has never been reported
in the media. After the birth of her first son, Lilly gave an interview to OceanDrive
in which she talked about how grounded she's felt since becoming a mother, saying,
"It helps put everything in perspective when things get
stressful or when there's a demand or pressures on me. At the end of the day,
it's our family, it's being a mother and a partner and seeing love all around."
In the same article, Lilly shared that her partner stayed at home with the kids, while she worked,
which just emphasizes the way the family is not caught up on stereotypes or cultural expectations.
Lovable character actor Wallace Shawn has been on our screens since 1979. You're
likely to recognize his face from projects like Manhattan, Clueless, or Young Sheldon,
depending on your generation. You probably also know his voice, given the countless animated
roles he has undertaken. But because he hasn't often been cast as the lead,
Shawn has never courted much press. Therefore his personal life has not been much of a topic
of conversation. While the actor has never married, he's not lacking for romantic love.
Shawn has been in a relationship with his partner, writer Deborah Eisenberg,
since 1972. The pair live together in the Chelsea neighborhood of New
York City. The couple has no children, and has never married, a topic both of
them have addressed in interviews. In a 2004 interview with The New York Times Magazine,
Shawn remarked that he wasn't interested in his private life becoming public, saying,
"I would say it is hard enough to make a plan for how you are going to spend
an evening with somebody else. So to make a plan for how you are going to
behave in 25 years seems based on a view of life that is incomprehensible to me."
In a separate profile in the same magazine, Eisenberg sweetly referred
to Shawn as her "boyfriend" and "sweetheart," but never her husband.
We are relatively confident that singer Enrique Iglesias has never walked down
the aisle with his long-term partner, retired tennis player Anna Kournikova,
but we would be lying if we said we could guarantee it. That's because the pair are
incredibly private people whose lives are not ripe for public consumption. Evidently,
marriage is not a priority for the couple, as Iglesias told Parade in 2012, saying,
"Maybe it's because I come from divorced parents,
but I don't think you love someone more because of a piece of paper."
Iglesias and Kournikova met when the athlete was cast as Iglesias's love interest in the 2001 music
video "Escape." They immediately became a couple and there were even engagement rumors circa 2004,
but those proved to be false. In 2008, Kournikova told People she has no plans to ever get married.
Despite this power couple's resistance to formal paperwork, the pair are still together and raising
their three children — twins Nicholas and Lucy, born in 2017, and daughter Mary, born in 2020.