11 longtime celebrity couples who never got married
11 longtime celebrity couples who never got married
Declan GallagherWed, July 1, 2026 at 12:00 PM UTC
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Kurt and Goldie. Oprah and Stedman. Rose and Bobby.Credit: Amy Sussman/Getty; Michael Kovac/Getty; Cindy Ord/Getty
For all the breathless coverage devoted to celebrity engagements, weddings, and whirlwind divorces, some of Hollywood’s most enduring love stories involve couples who never bothered with the paperwork. Marriage may be the industry’s favorite spectator sport, but for these long-term duos, the secret to longevity has nothing to do with rings or registries.
Take Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, who have spent more than four decades proving that romance thrives just fine outside the chapel while raising a blended family. Or Maya Rudolph and Paul Thomas Anderson, who long ago settled into a partnership so solid they needn’t bother with the legal rigamarole.
Across generations and genres, these 11 couples have rewritten the script on commitment.
Kurt Russell & Goldie Hawn
Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn at the Oscars in 2025Credit: Frazer Harrison/WireImage
Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn first met in 1967 on the set of The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, but it was more than a decade before their romantic relationship kindled.
The two reconnected in 1983 on the set of Jonathan Demme’s Swing Shift, but Russell nearly torpedoed the romance by initially putting his “worst foot forward.”
“I didn’t know Goldie at all outside of having worked with her many years before,” he recalled. “I just didn’t know in my mind what I was going to see. She had a great body, and so the first that came out was, ‘Man, you got a great figure.’ And it kind of came out quickly and it could’ve been wrong and she said, ‘Why thank you.’”
Hawn later told PEOPLE she knew from the jump that Russell was different: “He was so good-looking, but he had no pretense about him. I could tell right away he wasn’t a womanizer.”
When she saw how he interacted with her kids, Oliver Hudson and Kate Hudson, from her previous marriage, Hawn knew Russell was the guy for her.
In 1986, the couple welcomed their first son, Wyatt Russell, and soon afterward starred together in the classic rom-com Overboard (1987).
During Russell’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in 2017, he took the opportunity to single out his decades-long relationship.
“To you, I owe my wonderful life,” Russell said to Hawn in his speech. “Simply put Goldie, I cherish you. All the stars in the sky or on the boulevard can’t hold a candle to that… There’s no one else I’d rather be next to for all of that than Goldie Hawn.”
“No, we never got married but one thing that continues to grow is our love,” Hawn wrote in a 2021 Instagram post. “You’re a wild one, brilliant, lovable, childlike, perfectly maddening, a father supreme and deeply funny! I can’t imagine my life without you at any age, Kurt Russell. You’re the catch. And you’re all mine.”
Maya Rudolph & Paul Thomas Anderson
Maya Rudolph and Paul Thomas Anderson at the Oscars in 2022Credit: Gilbert Flores/Variety/Penske Media via Getty
Oscar-winning director Paul Thomas Anderson and Saturday Night Live veteran Maya Rudolph have been together since 2001 and share four children — Pearl, Lucille, Jack, and Ida. The two met at an SNL afterparty after she caught his eye on the show itself.
“He said he saw me in a sketch and said, ‘That’s the girl I’m going to marry,’” Rudolph told Town & Country. “But I don’t know. I wasn’t there. Maybe he just told me that to be sweet.”
Shortly after Pearl's birth in 2005, the couple moved to Anderson's native San Fernando Valley.
Though the pair have never married, Rudolph told The New York Times she felt “ooky” calling Anderson her “boyfriend” after they had their first child. She said she prefers “husband” because “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.”
Rudolph has appeared in two of Anderson’s films — Inherent Vice (2014) and Licorice Pizza (2021) — although the director’s proposed buddy-comedy pairing of Rudolph and Tiffany Haddish has yet to materialize. Phantom Thread (2017) was even inspired by Rudolph — which, if you’ve seen the movie, may or may not be a compliment.
“I remember that I was very sick, just with the flu. And I looked up, and my wife looked at me with this tenderness, and that made me think, ‘I wonder if she wants to keep me this way, maybe for a week or two,’” Anderson said in 2018. “I really started to think that maybe she was poisoning me. So that kernel of an idea, I had in my mind when I started working on writing something.”
Oprah Winfrey & Stedman Graham
Oprah and Stedman at the Golden Globes in 2018Credit: Michael Kovac/Getty
Oprah Winfrey and Stedman Graham have been together since 1986, shortly after The Oprah Winfrey Show hit the airwaves. They hit it off after meeting at a charity function. According to PEOPLE, the couple were briefly engaged in 1992, but ultimately felt a traditional union didn’t fit their relationship.
In 2020, Winfrey wrote in her magazine that Stedman was a “genuine gentleman,” but she initially worried he was “too handsome” and “must be a player.” She soon saw his genuine personality: “He’s so positive. Wants the best for me and everyone he knows. Truly wishes people well… He’s appropriately named because he’s steady as a mountain. Even-tempered, accountable, trustworthy, patient.”
In 1998, Oprah shouted out Stedman onstage at the Emmys. “Stedman, you’re the sweetest man, with the greatest integrity,” she said. “Thank you for helping me to be everything that I am, and all that is to come.”
During a 2017 Vogue interview, Oprah surmised that a potential marriage wouldn’t have lasted.
“Nobody believes it, but it’s true,” she said. “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. His interpretation of what it means to be a husband and what it would mean for me to be a wife would have been pretty traditional, and I would not have been able to fit into that.”
Oprah has said she appreciates Stedman for “letting me be who I need to be in the world. He’s never demanding anything from me like, ‘Where’s my breakfast? Where’s my dinner?’ Never any of that, which I believed would have changed had we married.”
Sam Rockwell & Leslie Bibb
Leslie Bibb and Sam Rockwell at the premiere of 'Juror #2' in 2024Credit: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
Leslie Bibb was reeling from a 2004 divorce when she met Sam Rockwell at “the most cliche place” in Los Angeles — the Chateau Marmont — in 2007.
“We went on a date like a week later,” she told Rosie O’Donnell in 2012, “and I think three weeks later, I was like, ‘I love you so much.’”
The two have shared the screen a handful of times — most notably in Iron Man 2 (2010) and season 3 of The White Lotus. In the latter, Bibb was a regular, while Rockwell appeared for a single episode in a performance that went instantly viral.
“They came to [Sam] very last minute to do the show. He was not sure about doing it, just because he didn't have proper prep time,” Bibb explained on Watch What Happens Live.
When Rockwell won an Oscar for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), he made his feelings clear, and blunt: “My beloved Leslie Bibb — you light my fire, baby. I love you.”
Rockwell told The Hollywood Reporter that he and Bibb never felt pressure to marry, saying they’re “doing just fine” without it. Bibb has echoed the sentiment, emphasizing that their relationship works because they support each other’s careers while maintaining a sense of independence.
“Leslie and I are very happy,” he told The Standard, adding that the two are “basically married.” “She’s in my will. I feel like we are married. We live like a married couple… We are both actors, so understand our lifestyle. We can help each other with scenes. She’s awesome. She’s very kind to me and takes care of me.”
Rose Byrne & Bobby Cannavale
Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale at the BAFTAs in 2026 (golden dragon not pictured)Credit: Neil Mockford/FilmMagic
Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale were introduced by mutual friends in 2012 and made their red carpet debut the following year.
Cannavale and Byrne have shared the screen numerous times, including Will Gluck’s musical Annie (2014), the indie Adult Beginners (2014), Spy (2015), and Ezra (2024) — not to mention playing a warring married couple in a 2020 production of Medea.
“[Acting together] is a very intense thing you can experience together,” Byrne told PEOPLE in 2015. “It’s not for everybody, but I think he's such a great actor.”
In early 2016, Cannavale revealed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that he and Byrne had welcomed their first child, son Rocco Robin. They welcomed their second son, Raphael, in November 2017.
Cannavale revealed in 2020 that he and Byrne refer to each other as “husband and wife” even though they’re not legally married. “I hate all the other words! It's just easier to say ‘husband and wife,’” he told Vulture. “‘Boyfriend and girlfriend’ feels so young. ‘Partner’ feels so sterile.”
The couple made headlines in early 2026 during Byrne's well-deserved awards-season run for If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025). While accepting her Golden Globe, Byrne mentioned that Cannavale couldn’t attend the ceremony because “we’re getting a bearded dragon, and he went to a reptile expo in New Jersey."
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“Never in my life will I announce something like that on a major awards show again,” Byrne later told The New York Times. “Everyone was thinking it’s for Bobby. It’s not! It’s for our children. The children.”
As for why they’ve never married, Byrne told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2021 that it was more chance than choice.
“I keep going, ‘Let’s get around to it, let’s do it,’” Byrne said. "And then, you know, you have a baby, and then, oh, there's another baby. It was kind of like that for us. I love weddings, and I know people [for whom] it’s an important thing, and I respect that totally.”
Sarah Paulson & Holland Taylor
Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor at the Tony Awards in 2024Credit: Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic
Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor, 32 years her senior, met at a party in 2005, but both were in relationships with other people at the time. In 2015, the two began communicating on social media; in November of that year Taylor posted a picture of Paulson online. Days later, Taylor clarified their relationship without naming Paulson.
“There’s a very big age difference between us which I’m sure shocks a lot of people, and it startles me. But as they say, ‘If she dies, she dies,’” Taylor joked to WNYC about the couple’s age gap.
One week later, PEOPLE confirmed Taylor and Paulson’s relationship.
In a 2018 interview with Town & Country, Paulson addressed questions about the age difference: “My choices in life have been unconventional, and that’s my business. But I do want to live responsibly and truthfully without hiding. It’s complicated, because there is a lot of hate in this world, and a lot of good can come from quote-unquote normalizing something for people who don't see it as normal. Our relationship represents a certain amount of hope and risk. Maybe there’s something brave in it. Maybe it encourages others to make brave choices. What else can I say? We love each other.”
Still, marriage has never been a serious topic of discussion for the couple.“We’ve never talked about it with any interest,” Taylor said in 2024. “It doesn’t seem to mean to us what it means to a lot of people.”
Winona Ryder & Scott Mackinlay Hahn
Winona Ryder and Scott Mackinlay Hahn at the 'Stranger Things' season 3 premiere in 2019Credit: Matt Winkelmeyer/FilmMagic
Together since 2011, Winona Ryder and fashion designer Scott Mackinlay Hahn have managed to keep their relationship almost entirely private—a rare feat in Hollywood. In a 2022 interview with Harper's Bazaar, Ryder shared the amusing story of how Hahn first charmed her.
"He thought I was Milla Jovovich," Ryder laughed. "He told me I was great in The Fifth Element."
Once they cleared up the mix-up, "we connected on so many levels," she said. "But it was amazing that he's not in this business... I really did try to keep it quiet."
The couple rarely appear in public and didn't make their red carpet debut until the NYFF premiere of Experimenter in 2015.
As for marriage? “I don’t know,” Ryder said in 2016. While specifying that she’s a “serial monogamist,” she explained, “I’d rather never have been married than been divorced a few times. Not that there’s anything wrong with divorce, but I don’t think I could do it if that was a possibility. When your parents are madly in love for 45 years, your standards are really high.”
Enrique Iglesias & Anna Kournikova
Anna Kournikova an Enrique Iglesias in Miami in 2006Credit: Ralph Notaro/Getty Imag
Another famously private celeb couple, Enrique Iglesias and Anna Kournikova met in 2001 on the set of his “Escape” music video.
They made their red carpet debut the following year, and in 2004 sparked engagement rumors when Kournikova was spotted with a massive pink diamond on that finger, but PEOPLE confirmed the rumors to be false. In 2008, Kournikova told the magazine, “I’m never getting married.”
Iglesias echoed his partner’s sentiments in 2012, telling Parade: “I’ve never really thought marriage would make a difference. Maybe it’s because I come from divorced parents, but I don’t think you love somebody more because of a piece of paper. Nowadays, it’s not taboo to have kids and not be married. What makes a difference is that you're a good parent, period.”
Kournikova and Iglesias welcomed twins Nicholas and Lucy in 2017. Three years later, they welcomed daughter Mary, and in late 2025, they welcomed their fourth child, son Romeo.
In 2023, Iglesias told PEOPLE that the “Escape” video changed his and Kournikova’s lives “in ways that I didn’t even think about.”
“When we met, although she came from the sports world, we kind of got each other,” he said. “We just started connecting little by little and got stronger and stronger and stronger.”
Ricky Gervais & Jane Fallon
Ricky Gervais and Jane Fallon at the National Television Awards in 2022Credit: Ian West/PA Images via Getty
Comedian Ricky Gervais and novelist Jane Fallon began dating in 1982, when they were both students at University College London — long before Gervais found fame with The Office.
“Our first flat was a one room in a place called Kings Cross, which was a really rough area,” the actor told PEOPLE in 2017. “I think it was above some sort of seedy sauna... That’s all we could afford. Our little bed was in this room. I could open the fridge from the bed.”
Fallon said in 2022 that she and Gervais “went through a good few years when we had absolutely no money… I had many Saturday jobs. I worked in various shops. I was a chambermaid in various hotels.”
The notion of marriage doesn’t excite either one of them.
“We are married for all intents and purposes; everything's shared and actually our fake marriage has lasted longer than a real one,” Gervais told The Times in 2010. “But there’s no point in us having an actual ceremony before the eyes of God because there is no God.”
“We’re not married because neither of [us] are fussed,” Fallon echoed to the Daily Mail in 2018. “I think if one of us really cared then we would probably do it but it’s not really been anything that either of us have ever really needed.”
Paul Dano & Zoe Kazan
Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano at the Critics Choice Awards in 2023Credit: Monica Schipper/WireImage
Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan have been together since 2007, having met while performing in the Ethan Hawke-directed Off-Broadway play Things We Want.
The couple made their relationship public in 2008 and went on to appear together in Kelly Reichardt's haunting neo-Western Meek's Cutoff (2010). They later starred together in the deconstructed rom-com Ruby Sparks (2012), which Kazan also wrote.
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They combined their writerly talents for Wildlife (2018), Dano's directorial debut. In October of that year, they welcomed their first child, and in late 2022, they welcomed another. Kazan and Dano rarely speak about their relationship, but they did offer some insight during a joint 2018 interview with The Guardian.
"Obviously, we get along, we like each other," Dano said. "But Zoe is fast and I'm slow."
"Paul's gut instinct is to try every possible permutation before he decides on something," Kazan replied. "I'm more extroverted. He's more patient. I like to run into the ocean, he likes to watch me run."
"Zoe is a good multitasker," Dano concluded. "I can't do more than one thing at a time."
Jason Statham & Rosie Huntington-Whiteley
Who says we can't have a bald Bond? Jason Statham and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley make the caseCredit: Marilla Sicilia/Archivio Marilla Sicilia/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty
Jason Statham and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley have been together since 2009, when they met at an industry party (that old story) in London. Huntington-Whiteley described the meeting as “instant chemistry.”
The couple made their red carpet debut at the 2011 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, and in 2016 PEOPLE confirmed their engagement after Huntington-Whiteley was spotted wearing a diamond ring at the Golden Globes.
In June 2017, they welcomed their son, Jack. They welcomed daughter Isabella in February 2022.
“I think the time [for marriage] will come. We’ve been so focused on our work for so long, and [then] Jack came along, we definitely talk about it. We’re looking forward to that time,” the British model said in 2018. “It’s also not a huge priority for us, we’re so happy. I think it will be fun to do it when the baby’s grown up a bit and he can be involved in the wedding.”
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