Susan Sarandon Reveals Why She Never Wanted To Get Married

Susan Sarandon has been acting for over half a century. One of her earliest roles was as Janet in what has become the longest-running movie in history, the 1975 cult classic "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (per The Atlantic). Some of her other career-defining roles include Annie in "Bull Durham," Louise in "Thelma and Louise," and Sister Helen in "Dead Man Walking," which earned the New York native her first (and, so far, only) Academy Award (per IMDb).

"Bull Durham" wasn't just a career highlight for Sarandon — it was also how she met the man who would become her long-time romantic partner, Tim Robbins. In the movie, her character is older and wiser than the baseball rookie played by Robbins, and Sarandon's character teaches him much about love, baseball, and life in general (per Roger Ebert).

Sarandon told The Telegraph in 2010, "Certainly if there is an older woman/younger guy theme they seem to come to me. I think it's great that people see me as being multifaceted and still desirable and smart and funny." In real life, Sarandon is 12 years older than Robbins, and that older woman/younger guy dynamic worked well for the couple for 23 years.

For over two decades, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins seemed like the epitome of the Hollywood power couple. They championed left-leaning political causes together, they had two sons, and Robbins treated Sarandon's daughter from a previous relationship like his own. But despite their long and seemingly idyllic relationship, these stars never got married.

"I think one of the reasons I haven't married Tim is that I hate that couples assumption — that once you're committed to someone you stop treating each other as individuals. I like getting up knowing I am choosing to be with that person," Sarandon told The Guardian in 2006.

"I've always liked the idea of choosing to be with somebody," she further said to The Telegraph in 2010, less than a year after her split with Robbins was made public. "I thought that if you didn't get married you wouldn't take each other for granted as easily. I don't know if after twentysomething years that was still true."

Susan Sarandon (née Tomalin) was just 17 years old when she met aspiring actor Chris Sarandon, the man who would later become known for portraying Prince Humperdinck in "The Princess Bride." The two were students at The Catholic University of America. "I married Chris, who was the first guy I slept with," she said to The Guardian in 2006.

The two just wanted to live together, but the Catholic school wouldn't allow cohabitation. "I decided to get married, only because we would've gotten kicked out of school," she later revealed on the "Divorced Not Dead" podcast in 2021. "How many people can actually stay married for a lifetime to the first person they sleep with? That would be quite an accomplishment," she continued. The couple tied the knot in 1967.

"Though it was a marriage and I took his name," Sarandon explained to AARP, "I never approached it like this is for the rest of our lives. We said, 'Every year we'll visit it and see if we want to renew.'" The couple stayed together for seven years before making the mutual decision to separate.

Susan Sarandon has had many high-profile relationships throughout her life, but just the one marriage. She has been connected to celebrities such as music legend David Bowie, as well as Italian filmmaker Franco Amurri, with whom she has a daughter. Her most recent relationship was with screenwriter Jonathan Bricklin, who is 31 years her junior, but that ended in 2015.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph in 2021, Sarandon explained why she keeps connecting with men so much younger than she is. "I think I can only be with people who are really looking, interested and asking questions, which is much easier to find when you're younger because nobody knows anything, and everything is new," she said.

Now in her 70s, Sarandon feels unsure what relationships and partners the future might hold in store for her. "I would like to have a travel companion, male, female — age doesn't matter," she told People in 2021, "but I would like to find someone who's up for an adventure kind of attitude."

She further revealed on the "Divorced Not Dead" podcast in 2021, "I think I'm pretty open to the idea of being with someone, but it certainly would take something extraordinary to share my medicine cabinet at this point. I think that those days are over."