The Real Reason These Stars Never Got Married

Marriage isn't for everyone. After all, if Brangelina couldn't make it work, who could? Still, that doesn't mean that avoiding putting a ring on it means a lack of commitment or that these stars will die alone and miserable. In fact, for a lot of celebs, the opposite is true. Celebs are just normal people, (sort of) like the rest of us, and that means not all of them want the same things. These single stars and couples haven't gone down the aisle, and that's just fine with them. 

Oprah Winfrey and Stedman Graham have been together since 1986, and he actually proposed to her — but she didn't say yes. She explained why on an episode of Super Soul Sunday (via Entertainment Tonight), saying, "The moment he asked me to marry him, I was like 'Oh, God! Now I actually have to get married?' But what I realized is, I don't want to be married. Because I could not have the life that I created for myself. I couldn't do it."

However, Oprah Winfrey's own stepmother, Barbara, hinted to the Daily Mail that the talk show titan's relationship with BFF Gayle King is to blame, as well as Winfrey's fortune. "Stedman isn't a good steward of money and that suits Oprah fine," Barbara said. "He is financially dependent on her. He knows her secrets and she knows his. Why would they marry now? He's there at her beck and call. He knows his role in her life." She added, "Gayle is very, very present. I don't know any man I've ever dated who could tolerate that, but Stedman knows Gayle's going nowhere. They speak on the phone three or four times a day...[their relationship is] unhealthy...I can only say what I saw and observed over the years. Gayle was more present than Stedman."

Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn have been together for 33 years and have a son, Wyatt Russell, together — but they've never tied the knot. Hawn — who was previously married to actor Bill Hudson and dancer Gus Trikonis — explained her reason to Loose Women, saying, "I would have been long divorced if I got married. If you need to be bound to someone, then it's important to be married. If you are independent, it's important to not be married."

"[Russell and I] like the choice and we chose to stay," she continued. "We're always asked why we are not married. Why? What is marriage going to do for us? At the beginning, you want to see each other all the time. Then you get jealous when they're gone too long and that's exciting. But for a healthy long-term relationship, then 68 percent of the time [together] is good."

Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were together for 23 years and had two sons before their breakup in 2009. It seems like marriage wasn't in the cards for either of them, but that it was ultimately Sarandon's choice. She told The Telegraph in 2010, "I've always liked the idea of choosing to be with somebody. I thought that if you didn't get married, you wouldn't take each other for granted as easily." However, she admitted, "I don't know if after twentysomething years that was still true." 

Despite having three kids and spending nearly a decade together, Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick never married. Why? Because, for a reality starlet, Kardashian claims to not want all the attention on her.

"A wedding terrifies me," she confessed to Cosmopolitan. "I like tradition; I don't have anything against that. I think it's more fear of walking down the aisle in front of all those people. I don't like being the center of attention," she said. "I mean, Scott and I have talked about it many times over the years. The situation was never right. But I don't think we would've done a big wedding—we would've done something really small, just us and our kids."

Their split in July 2015, which was spawned by Disick getting cozy with another woman, seemed to be the last straw. But alas, it wasn't. Over the next couple of years, the on-again-of-again couple continued to have drama after drama, as Cosmopolitan outlines in a handy timeline. The odds of them permanently reconciling, let alone ever walking down the aisle, seem like well below zero.

Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt were together for a whopping 18 years before their split in September 2015, but they never married. Hamm explained to Parade in 2010, "I don't have the marriage chip, and neither of us have the greatest examples of marriages in our families. But Jen is the love of my life, and we've already been together four times longer than my parents were married." 

The same year, he told the New York Post (via the San Francisco Gate), "We may not have a piece of paper that says we're husband and wife, but Jennifer is more than just a girlfriend. What we have is much deeper and we both know that."

Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson were together for more than a decade before their split in July 2016, and it appears to be that her hesitance to commit may have been the cause of their relationship's demise. Kruger revealed to the Edit in March 2016 that it took her almost ten years just to move in with the Dawson's Creek alum. 

"I just moved this week. I need to unpack and buy some house stuff, like candles and books," she said (via E! News). "[Moving here] was a major commitment. That's a big step into adulthood for me, to allow that time for someone else out of my time." When asked if she'd marry Jackson, she replied, "Welcome to my dilemma." Adding to the dilemma? The New York Daily News reported that Kruger may have cheated on Jackson with her Sky co-star Norman Reedus in the summer of 2016.

Jackson previously offered his own explanation of why he and Jackson never wed to Glamour in November 2014. "I can tell you why we're not married: we're not religious," he told the mag. "I don't feel any more or less committed to Diane for not having stood in front of a priest and had a giant party. We're both children of divorce, so it's hard for me to take marriage at face value as the thing that shows you've grown up and are committed to another person."

Charlize Theron dated Stuart Townsend from 2002 to 2011, but they never married — and she never wanted to marry him, anyway. "It's a divine right," she told Piers Morgan Tonight (via E! News). "When government starts to tell us who can love and what is good love, whether government or a government built on a certain religion, I do have a problem with that. If you want to bring it back to the politics...I do have a problem with the fact that our government hasn't stepped up enough to make this federal, to make this legal." 

She added, "I'll be the first to say, here on your show, marriage — before I felt this way about this issue — was never something that was important to me. I don't know the exact reason for that. I really want for myself a long-term relationship." She went on, "And I have been in long-term relationships... That's the kind of union that I want. The actual ceremony is not something that is important to me — but I see the importance for other people."

She had a change of heart in December 2014 when she got engaged to Sean Penn after a year of dating, but they split six months later. Their split was said to be contentious, so who knows if she'll ever want to get engaged again.

Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling have two daughters together and have been together since 2011. There were rumors in September 2016 that they married in secret, but the couples' reps shot down those tales. Still, why haven't they actually tied the knot? They already feel like they did. "Eva and Ryan have always felt like a married couple," a source told Us Weekly. "They are infatuated with each other."

Mendes, who was previously married to Peruvian filmmaker George Augusto for a decade, told the Telegraph, "If we go back to the origin of marriage, it was very unromantic. It was about land, basically. It was about ownership. So I think it's a kind of unromantic idea. When I look around and see the emphasis people put on getting married and weddings, I think, wait a second, what does this really mean?"

Gosling made it clear that he is 100 percent committed to Mendes, ring or not. He told Hello! magazine, "I know that I'm with the person I'm supposed to be with. ... [the only quality I look for in a woman] is that she's Eva Mendes. There's nothing else I'm looking for." Swoon.

Chelsea Handler has been opposed to marriage for as long as she's been famous, but she revealed to Ellen DeGeneres in January 2016 that she's softening her stance. ”I think I would do it out of rebellion," she said. "I don't like when anybody tells me to conform to any idea. Now that I got past the point where everyone wants you to get married, when you're 20 and 30 and every guy you date they're like, 'Are you gonna marry him?' Now that I'm past the age and I turned 40 and nobody's asking me to get married, now I'm open to it."

Sarah Silverman told Ellen DeGeneres (via People) that she doesn't want to get married until gay marriage is legal everywhere, despite being happy in a relationship with Michael Sheen at the time. "I just don't understand the instinct to want to join a club that is elitist," she said. "I mean, it's like joining a country club that doesn't allow Jews or black people. What's the difference?" She added, "And besides that I don't know that I would want to get the government involved in my love. Personally."

Of course, considering the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal in America just a few weeks after her interview, it's possible we might see Silverman tied the knot sometime in the future. Just probably not with Sheen, as they broke up during the 2017 holiday season. 

Diane Keaton admitted to People that she thinks she "failed at" settling down and starting a family because she didn't quite understand that marriage requires more than romance. "It's not the worst tragedy. But I really wish I had bought myself a man! A good man who would be a great father, I really do. I think it's a better way to go," she said. "I think I was not practical. I had some insane idea that I had to be 'in love.' Now I see what it really takes: real consideration that you're a good team together."

Keaton, who's now a single mom of two, said she was desperate to make it work with her Godfather co-star and her love of five years, Al Pacino. "But he was even less inclined to be realistic than me," she said. "And I was on the cusp of being very old. So that poor guy. I don't think he was really that interested. And I don't think a long-term happy marriage would be easy for him."

John Cusack has a colorful dating history, which has featured pairings with Claire Forlani, Janice Dickinson, Lili Taylor, Gina Gershon, Melissa Gilbert, Alison Eastwood, Neve Campbell, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Alexandra Kerry, Brooke Burns, and Uma Thurman. Phew! So why didn't he settle down with any of these beauties? He told Elle simply, "Society doesn't tell me what to do." Well, there you go.

Jennifer Hudson was in a relationship with former wrestler David Otunga for ten years, and they had a son together before their eventual split in 2017. Prior to their breakup — and Hudson's protective order against Otunga — the two were engaged for some time.

Regarding why they hadn't yet married at the time, Hudson told Wendy Williams in 2014, "Well, the ring is still there and we will get married one day but again, my thing is, once I get married, I don't believe in divorce. And so when I get married, it's for good. We want to be completely sure we're together, we're happy and when it's time... I think that's the key, take baby steps." When Williams pointed out that having a kid and being together for almost a decade goes beyond baby steps, she explained, "That's my definition of baby steps!"

Prior to Hudson and Otunga's split, sources told Radar Online that the couple were rarely together and had previously gotten cold feet. "They were originally planning to tie the knot in October 2010, but it was called off," an insider said. "At this point, it doesn't seem like a wedding will ever happen." And now we know that's definitely the case.

Sheryl Crow explained to Good Housekeeping that she's been engaged three times (she was once set to marry professional cyclist Lance Armstrong) but she never married for a good reason. "Hey, I would love to get married — I'm still old-fashioned. But I don't think marriage is the be-all and end-all. It's better to have three broken engagements than three divorces." 

She added, "I had always gone out with guys who were highly successful, which would seem like it would put me at an equal level. But what ends up happening is that one of you becomes smaller—and it was always me. It's always the woman. I mean, I don't know if it's always the woman, but I do think that sometimes in order for one person's light to shine, everyone else has to dim theirs." 

Still, despite all that, she's open to marriage. In 2017, she told People, " I don't think you have to be married to have a wonderful relationship. I definitely date and have had some good relationships — we'll see what happens!"

Despite being one of the biggest heartthrobs of the '90s who has continued to find success today, Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't seem to be in any rush to get married. He told Parade of marriage, "That time will come when that time comes. The truth is, you can't predict marriage. You can't plan it. It's just going to happen when it happens." Of course, it may "happen" when he gets bored of his serial modelizing and finally decides on just one swimsuit or lingerie model for the long haul. 

And that time may have come, if the rumor mill is true. Sources reported to Us Weekly in August 2018 that DiCaprio may be finally ready to propose to girlfriend Camila Morrone (who, we might add, is a model — shocking!) and they're even talking about kids. Only time will tell if the rumors are true — but if George Clooney can settle down, anything is possible.

Unlike her Sex and the City character, Kristin Davis has never been married — and she doesn't plan to get hitched in the future. Speaking to Haute Living in 2013, the actress, who noted that she is very independent, shared that she remembered "being young and thinking, 'Why are all these people getting married?'"

Davis recalled believing she'd never get hitched when she in her 20s, even though many people around her were super into the idea of marriage. "I grew up in the South so all everyone talked about was marriage," she told People. "But all I wanted was to move to New York and do theater. And in my thirties, I was busy doing the show so I just didn't have time."

These days, Davis is busy being a mother to two children, a boy and a girl. And, at the time of this writing, it doesn't seem as though she'll be walking down the aisle anytime soon, seeing as she doesn't even appear to be in a relationship (at least none that's been made public).

Despite having previously been engaged to Pirates of the Caribbean actor Johnny Depp and having been in a serious relationship with Good Will Hunting's Matt Damon, Stranger Things star Winona Ryder has never actually tied the knot. The film icon admitted to Net-a-Porter in 2016 that her fear of divorce may have kept her from fully committing to any one person. "I'd rather never have been married than been divorced a few times," she shared (via Yahoo!). "Not that there's anything wrong with divorce, but I don't think I could do it if that was a possibility."

She revealed that her parents' super successful marriage may have influenced her as well. "When your parents are madly in love for 45 years, your standards are really high," she said. Though she may not want to get married, Ryder has no problem locking herself into a relationship. "I'm a serial monogamist," she stated.

Shonda Rhimes, who's well known as the showrunner of ABC series like Grey's Anatomy and Scandal, never intends to marry. And that's because she's just never wanted to. She admitted as much during Oprah Winfrey's SuperSoul Sunday on OWN in 2015. "I'm one of those people, since I was 5, I could tell you I was going to have kids. I could tell you I was going to have three. I could tell you they were going to be girls," Rhimes told Winfrey. "But I have never wanted to get married. I never played bride. I was never interested. I don't know what it is; I never wanted to get married."

Rhimes, a mother of three daughters (as predicted), does like dating though. "I love having boyfriends," she shared, but, she added, "I do not want a husband in my house." You have to respect that she knows what she wants... and what she doesn't.