Celebrity Couples Who Have Been Together Ages, But Never Married

Hollywood couples are not known for their longevity, but that never stops us from investing in our favorite relationships. Oftentimes, our beloved couples end up walking down the aisle — sometimes way too quickly — but there are also a fair number of celebrity twosomes who opt to forgo the legality of traditional marriage. Here we have collected some of the greatest celebrity couples who have been together for a very long time without ever getting wed, and some of them may surprise you (especially since certain people on this list do refer to their partners as "husband" or "wife").

We did not include any couple who is still under the 10-year mark, though we have high hopes for the continued relational bliss of Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell, Diane Kruger and Norman Reedus, Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor, and many others. We also did not include any couple where there is uncertainty about whether or not they are wed, such as Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes — who are commonly reported to have married at some point, despite there being no details on when or where. It is also worth noting that, on occasion, a longstanding unmarried couple will suddenly decide to get married — like John Corbett and Bo Derek, who married in 2020 but have been together since 2002 — which means that any of the couples on this list could potentially still say "I do". So, here are 15 celebrity couples who have been together ages but have never married (at least not yet).

We have to 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," which was actually Hawn's first film. Nothing happened between the two for one big reason — age. While Hawn was 21 at the time, Kurt was only 16. It would be a decade and a half before this iconic couple started their love affair, after meeting again at an audition in 1983. 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 (they had broken into the home Hawn was renovating).

Hawn and Kurt have now been together for four decades, and they even have a child together, hockey player-turned-actor Wyatt Russell. Kurt is also regarded as a father figure by Hawn's two other children, actors Kate and Oliver Hudson, who continuously praise their stepdad in interviews. And while Hawn and Kurt make magic together onscreen — "Overboard" is a classic — it is their close family and sweet love for each other that we most admire, and no marriage has been necessary to achieve that. 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 human to be able to make a life with a celebrity as enormously famous as Oprah Winfrey, given her larger-than-life presence that is sure to dominate each and every day. But luckily for her, our favorite media mogul found her life partner decades ago in the forms of Stedman Graham, an accomplished businessperson, author, and speaker. Winfrey and Graham first met in 1986, and once Graham became single, the pair went on a date. The next year, Graham was already making appearances on Winfrey's talk show 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 — as they have been since 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 an important thing for her, and that it is not even really a topic of conversation for the couple. "Nobody believes it, but it's true," she told Vogue in 2017. "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. "I definitely don't want to become a parent. It's not my bag," Rockwell once told The Guardian. "It's weird, I don't get children, I don't quite understand it. I think being an only child means you learn to live in your own world. It's a survival thing...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 romantic love.

Rockwell met fellow actor Leslie Bibb at the famed Chateau Marmont toward the end of 2007, and the rest is history. 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 nice little life they have built does not include any paperwork, despite speculation about marriage after Rockwell referred to Bibb as his "wife" while on the awards circuit in 2018. Sweetly, as Rockwell told Us Weekly, 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. That said, the popular couple have been divorced since 2013, which is also the same year that Cox met her current partner, Johnny McDaid. McDaid, an Irish native, is a musician and a member of the band Snow Patrol. He is a staple on Cox's Instagram, but the two have weathered a few bumps in the road on the way to bliss.

The relationship began after the pair were introduced by their mutual friend, singer Ed Sheeran, and it got hot and heavy quickly. By April 2014, Sheeran confirmed to The Mirror that Cox and McDaid were already living together, only eight or nine months into their coupling. They announced their engagement in June of that year but called it off and fully broke up in November 2015. But it took only months for Cox and McDaid to reunite, and things were relatively smooth sailing from there. "We were engaged, and now we're just together," Cox said on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2019. "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 would not break apart for a second time.

Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan have already 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." "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," Kazan explained in a 2012 interview with W magazine. That off-stage kiss must have been pretty good, because the couple has lasted ever since — with no marriage license in sight.

Dano and Kazan welcomed a baby girl in 2018, which was confirmed by Dano in an appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" eight weeks after the fact. They also had a son in late 2022, which they again managed to keep from the press for weeks. Though they have built a beautiful life together, Dano and Kazan have not expressed any desire to wed. In fact, quite the opposite — in August 2018, Kazan tweeted her frustration at the question "when are you getting married?" in response to another user. But also, if this pair were to walk down the aisle, we would not be surprised if they choose (or have already chosen!) to keep that to themselves, given how notoriously private they are.

It was mutual friends who 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 — who was previously married to screenwriter Jenny Lumet, with whom he shares son Jake —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 2016) and Rafael (born 2017). Byrne and Cannavale have also appeared in a variety of shared projects over the years, including the film "Annie," and the miniseries "Mrs. America."

Because of our culture's fixation on marriage, Cannavale and Byrne have been asked about their marital status on numerous occasions. Though they have not wed, Byrne has been known to refer to her spouse as "husband" in some interviews. "He's practically my husband, so calling him that is easier,' she told ES Magazine in 2017. In that same interview, Byrne also said that the pair will get married "one day" because "why not?" — although here we are, years later, and there is still no ring on that finger. "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 told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2021. "I guess for us it's just been, we didn't do it, we'll do it, then – no! Pandemic."

Though they have never married, a lot of people assume that Maya Rudolph and Paul Thomas Anderson are wed. Perhaps that is because of how long they have been together, or their baseball team of kids, but it is also probably likely 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" did not feel like the right term and that she uses the h-word loosely. "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," she said.

The "Saturday Night Live" legend has been with the 11-time Oscar nominee since 2001. Interestingly, neither has shared the full story about how they first met and they are such low-key celebrities that we often forget they are a couple until they pop up together at an awards show. The pair share four children — Pearl, Lucille, Jack, and Minnie  — all of whom adorably made appearances in Anderson's film "Licorice Pizza," alongside Rudolph. "That was actually a magical thing, because COVID happened, lockdown happened and then Paul was told like, 'Okay, you can shoot now,'" she explained on "Late Night with Seth Meyers." "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 an interview with Bust magazine in 2010, wherein she explained that while she remained close with former lover Byrne, she was only partnered with Kopp in the present. Byrne is the father of Swinton's twins, and so it makes sense that they would remain close friends. "I have never been married. I have two children with John Byrne...and we've not been a couple for many years, and we're very close friends, and we bring up our children together," she explained in the interview, as reported by the Daily Express. "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 for Swinton, a quick Google search makes it extremely clear that the rumors still abound. But really, Swinton does not seem like the type to lose too much sleep over what others think about her or her lifestyle. She is still in a relationship with Kopp, with whom she was seen vacationing in 2021. So, she may not be married or in a three-way partnership, but Swinton'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 couplings. Amongst others, Ryder has been linked to big stars like Matt Damon, Christian Slater, Rob Lowe, and Beck. But things have changed since that era, partially because Ryder is now rather private with her personal life and partially because she is no longer as big of a name as she once was (and therefore, does not receive as much media coverage). We do know that she has a partner, though, since she has been photographed with her fashion designer boyfriend Scott Mackinlay Hahn at events on many occasions.

Ryder and Mackinlay Hahn first got together in 2011. Despite the very long tenure 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. "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," she said (via Us Weekly). "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, and romantic is not one of them. But despite his wise-cracking, hard-shelled exterior, Gervais has to be at least somewhat of a lover since he 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. In many interviews, Gervais has affirmed that they are dearly devoted to one another but refuse to marry and have no desire for children. "Just didn't fancy it. Too much hassle. Not something either of us wanted to do," he explained to The Sunday Times in 2010. "We just ... didn't fancy dedicating 16 years of our lives. And there are too many children, of course."

Of course, not wanting kids does not mean one cannot want to get married, but that too has always been on Gervais's no-go list. According to The Mirror, Gervais and Fallon's lack of religious beliefs played a big role in their stance. "We are married for all intents and purposes, everything's shared and actually our fake marriage has lasted longer than a real one," he said. "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.

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 is because the pair have sent some mixed messages through the years by way of interviews, and because they are incredibly private people whose lives are not ripe for public consumption. Nonetheless, despite there once being talk of "divorce," most sources agree the pair have never actually gotten wed. Evidently, marriage is not a priority for the couple. As Iglesias told Parade in 2012, "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. Here's where it gets complicated: in 2007, Iglesias said that he was "divorced," which the world took seriously but was later assumed to have been a joke. And the next year, Kournikova told People she has no plans to ever get married. Despite their resistance to formal paperwork, the pair are currently together and raising their three children — twins Nicholas and Lucy (born 2017) and daughter Mary (born 2020).

Action star extraordinaire and full-on zaddy Jason Statham is not 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 party in London. In an Instagram Q&A, Huntington-Whiteley said that "it was instant chemistry" between the two, despite their two-decade age difference. The couple got engaged in 2016, but they have chosen not to walk down the aisle — at least yet. That is not to say that there have not been some advancements in their relationship since 2016, as Statham and Huntington-Whiteley have had two children in the years since. Their son, Jack Oscar, was born in 2017, and their daughter, Isabella James, came along in 2022.

Marriage is still a possibility, too, if we are to believe Huntington-Whiteley's words. "I think the time will come," she told "Extra" in 2018. "We've been so, like, focused on our work for so long and then Jack came along. And I think, you know, we definitely talk about it. We're looking forward to that time — but it's also not a huge priority to us." 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. And whether they are at a fashion show or on a red carpet, they look more in love, so we have high hopes.

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"). 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 is not known publicly. Switzer — who is adjacent to show business but not directly in it, as a former Harper's Bazaar editor — raised Cicely alongside Bernhard, and though same-sex marriage has been legal in New York (where they live) since 2011, the two have never married. Interestingly, Bernhard was supposed to have a unique involvement in at least one lesbian wedding, just not her own. In 2015, Page Six reported that the comedian had agreed to officiate the wedding of her good friend, "Orange is the New Black" star Lea DeLaria, and her partner Chelsea Fairliss. But since DeLaria and Fairliss split before walking down the aisle, that never happened.

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 glamour 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. The set of "Lost" is also where Lilly met her partner, Norman Kali, who was a production assistant that worked on 47 episodes of the six-season show.

Lilly and Kali have two children — son Kahekili and another son whose name has never been reported in the media. "Becoming a mother has really helped me put my feet on the ground and given me a very powerful sense of self and a powerful sense of priority in life," Lilly told OceanDrive after her older son's birth. "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 that same article, Lilly also 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 "Gossip Girl," depending on your generation. You probably also know his voice, given the countless animated roles he has undertaken. But because he has not often been cast as the lead, Shawn has never courted much press and, and so, his personal life has not habitually been a topic of conversation. While the actor has never married, he is not lacking for romantic love, having been with his current partner for ages.

Shawn has been in a relationship with his partner, writer Deborah Eisenberg, since 1972, and the pair live together in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. The couple has no children, and has never married, which is a topic both of them have addressed in interviews. "If I wanted my personal life to be public, I would be married. Marriage is public. That's what it means," Shawn told The New York Times Magazine in 2004. "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.