Their own love stories! From Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell to Leslie Bibb and Sam Rockwell, some Hollywood couples have chosen not to get married.
Hawn was previously married to Gus Trikonis from 1969 to 1976 and to Bill Hudson from 1976 to 1982 before she sparked her romance with Russell in 1983. The big-screen icons never tied the knot — and Hawn thinks they’re better for it.
“I would have been long divorced if I’d been married. Marriage is an interesting psychological thing. If you need to feel bound to someone, then it’s important to be married,” the First Wives Club actress said during a 2015 appearance on the U.K.’s Loose Women. “If you have independence, if you have enough money and sense of independence and you like your independence, there’s something psychological about not being married because it gives you the freedom to make decisions one way or the other.”
Kate Hudson’s mom asserted that both she and Russell liked “the choice” of staying put in their relationship without the pressure of marriage.
The Silkwood star, for his part, exchanged vows with Season Hubley in 1979. The pair divorced after less than five years, which impacted Russell’s perspective in his romance with Hawn.
“We said if this is ever an issue, if the kids feel we need to do this, then we’ll get married,” the Hateful Eight actor told Today in November 2020, as his partner chimed in, “They didn’t want us to get married.”
Courteney Cox and Johnny McDaid
Cox and McDaid met in 2013 at a party at the Friends actress’ house. They got engaged in February 2014 but later broke things off in December 2015. Though Cox and McDaid were back together by May 2016, they never reinstated their engagement or made it down the aisle. Still, Cox told People in 2018 that she considers herself married to the Snow Patrol band member “in her heart.”
Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell
The Cactus Flower actress was previously married twice. She moved on with Russell in 1983 — the same year he finalized his divorce from his ex-wife — and the partners have been going strong ever since.
Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale
The Damages alum and the Master of None star, who share sons Rafa and Rocco, have been together since the early 2010s. “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,” Byrne joked to the Sydney Morning Herald in July 2021, explaining why they haven’t walked down the aisle.
Lauren Graham and Peter Krause
Graham and Krause began dating while working together on Parenthood from 2010 to 2015. “I don’t know! We are really happy,” the Gilmore Girls alum dished of her future plans on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in March 2014. “I feel like close to five years in Hollywood, it’s like, aren’t we married already really?”
In June 2022, news broke that the pair split in 2021 and were no longer living together.
Maya Rudolph and Paul Thomas Anderson
While the Saturday Night Live alum refers to the filmmaker as her husband, the pair aren’t legally married. Rudolph told The New York Times that it felt “ooky” to call the Licorice Pizza director her boyfriend decades into their relationship, so she made the switch. “[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,” she said in 2018.
Shakira and Gerard Pique
The “She Wolf” singer and the soccer star sparked their romance in 2011 after Piqué starred in the music video for “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa).” The couple share sons Milan and Sasha. When asked in 2020 why they haven’t exchanged vows, Shakira told 60 Minutes, “To tell you the truth marriage scares the sh–t out of me. I don’t want him to see me as the ‘wife.’ I want him to see me as the lover, the girlfriend. I want to keep him on his toes. I want him to think that anything’s possible depending on behavior.”
After 12 years together, the twosome announced their split in June 2022.
Leslie Bibb and Sam Rockwell
In 2007, the couple met while Rockwell was filming Frost/Nixon. Bibb, for her part, was previously married to businessman Rob Born from 2003 to 2004, but she and the Fosse/Verdon alum never wed. “She keeps me laughing. … She’s really talented and funny herself,” he told Us in 2018. “She reminds me of a young Mary Tyler Moore.”
Bibb opened up about her decision not to marry Rockwell during a June 2025 appearance on Today With Jenna & Friends.
“I mean, listen, I love Sam Rockwell, I would put him in my pocket and carry him with me all the time, I love him. I do not want to get married,” she told host Jenna Bush Hager. “I feel like we are married.”
When asked whether she wanted to marry Rockwell at the start of their relationship, Bibb said, “No … and then he would annoy the crap out of me because he was like, ‘Really? You don’t want to get married?’ [And] I was like, ‘Stop saying it, I already said I don’t want to marry you. Stop asking me like I’m going to pull, like, a sneak on you.’ But he didn’t want it either.”
She continued, “I mean, I don’t know, maybe it’s probably something about the way we grew up, but I feel like, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys
The Americans costars have been together since 2014 after Russell finalized her divorce from Shane Deary, with whom she shares two sons. In 2016, the actress and the Wales native welcomed a son together, and raising their little ones has taken precedence over tying the knot.
Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor
Despite their more-than-30-year age gap, the Mrs. America star and the Emmy winner have been totally committed since 2015. Paulson opened up about her “unconventional” romance during a 2018 Elle interview, explaining, “For a person who might find themselves in a situation that they fear will be misperceived or judged, maybe they could see me living my life in a way that is authentic to me. … If that inspires anybody else, that can’t be a bad thing.”
Winona Ryder and Scott Mackinlay Hahn
The longtime couple have kept their relationship relatively out of the spotlight since 2011. “Marriage? I don’t know,” the Stranger Things actress mused to The Edit in 2016. “I don’t know. 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.”
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