Strange Things Everyone Ignores About Kevin Bacon & Kyra Sedgwick's Marriage

Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick have one of the most enduring marriages in Hollywood, having tied the knot all the way back in 1988. And despite some setbacks along the way, such as the major money problems that changed everything for Bacon and Sedgwick, the celebrity couple remains committed to making it work. More than that, the "Footloose" star has even gone as far as to declare that marrying Sedgwick and starting a family with her changed Bacon for the better, as it made him reevaluate his priorities in life. "Once you change your point of view in that way, you start to see how many issues there are that need addressing outside of yourself and your desire to become famous and make money and acquire stuff," the beloved actor explained on "Today" in September 2023.

All that being said, there are still a few odd details about Bacon and Sedgwick's relationship regardless, which are bound to make even hardcore fans raise an eyebrow when they start to look closely. For instance, while everyone loves a "love at first sight" story, some of the earliest encounters between the two don't exactly scream "future husband and wife." And that's not even taking into account the admittedly rather tenuous yet still surprising blood relation shared between the couple that they wouldn't discover until more than 20 years into their union. Here are some strange things that everyone ignores about it.

As the old adage goes, you only get one chance to make a good first impression. In the case of Kevin Bacon, he actually had two opportunities with future wife Kyra Sedgwick. But in both instances, the "Friday the 13th" star only succeeded in making himself look worse in her eyes. During an April 2025 appearance on "The Drew Barrymore Show," Bacon recalled how he initially crossed paths with Sedgwick when he was a fresh-faced, 19-year-old off-Broadway actor and she was a 12-year-old aspiring actor in her own right. At the time, the future eighties icon was on a break between his matinee and evening performances, and Sedgwick approached him at a nearby deli after catching the earlier show.

"This 12-year-old girl came up and said, 'Hi, I liked you in the play.' And, uh, according to her, I said, 'Thanks, sweetie.' You know, kind of [...] misogynistic," Bacon confessed. His future wife carried that interaction with her until they reconnected while working together on the 1988 made-for-TV movie "Lemon Sky" several years later. "She said, 'You know, we met in the Village after that play that time. Do you remember that?' And I went, 'Yeah, I do remember that.' And she went, 'Really?' And I went, 'No.' So, she did not like me. It was not love at first sight," Bacon explained. It should come as no surprise then, that when the actor decided that he liked Sedgwick, winning her over proved to be an uphill battle.

Despite Kevin Bacon's flippant attitude when he first met Kyra Sedgwick, romance still blossomed between them on the set of "Lemon Sky," in 1987. Still, their initial courtship was a one-sided affair, with Bacon going to extreme lengths to make Sedgwick fall for him. As the "Closer" star explained during a 2012 appearance on "Conan," she wasn't looking for love when she arrived on the TV film's Massachusetts set. Sedgwick also recalled that, every night after they were done shooting for the day, Bacon would invite the entire cast out for dinner. However, she would always decline. The actor later found out that the whole thing was actually a ruse to spend more time with her. But since she never went for it, the "Tremors" star just ended up buying a bunch of people dinner every night.

Bacon then adopted a new approach. While filming a scene where his character had to give hers a back rub, he suggested Sedgwick book an actual massage with the masseuse at his hotel. Since the spa was located inside the hotel gym, the actor also threw out that maybe they could get dinner if they ran into each other. Lo and behold, right as the Emmy winner was leaving the spa, Bacon was finishing a workout. But this was no coincidence; the actor actually called the lobby so he'd know exactly when Sedgwick was getting massaged, and planned his stop at the gym accordingly. She confessed to Conan O'Brien that she didn't suspect Bacon had orchestrated that encounter until he fessed up years later.

By the time "Lemon Sky" finally hit the airwaves in February 1988, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick had already been engaged for two months. The following September, they were married. While many newlyweds like to take things slow and get settled into married life before having kids, the celebrity couple wasted absolutely no time starting a family. As in, they quite literally started trying on their honeymoon. Even weirder, it was apparently a spontaneous decision on Bacon and Sedgwick's part. "We were like, Let's just not use birth control," the "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" star shared during a 2010 interview with More. 

Even so, Sedgwick acknowledged, "I didn't think it was going to happen so fast. I got pregnant in two weeks." The happy couple welcomed their son, Travis, in June 1989 — exactly nine months after tying the knot. Considering that Sedgwick was unimpressed by Bacon just two years earlier, that's a pretty impressive speed-run. But, of course, their family wasn't complete. The couple welcomed their daughter, Sosie, in March 1992.

In what was almost certainly the most embarrassing moment for Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick as a couple, the two fell victim to a now-infamous Ponzi scheme orchestrated by financier Bernie Madoff. When his house of cards fell in 2008, the Hollywood A-listers unwillingly said goodbye to what they believed was a legitimate investment opportunity. During an appearance on the "Smartless," podcast in October 2022, Bacon confessed that he and Sedgwick lost the vast majority of their money as a result of Madoff's shady dealings. In retrospect, he added, there were some glaring red flags from the very beginning, as the disgraced financier made some rather lofty promises. 

"There's obvious life lessons there. If something is too good to be true, it's too good to be true," he said. The "Cop Car" star echoed this statement in an April 2025 interview with Esquire, noting that while he and Sedgwick weren't put off considering similar endeavors in the future, they did make it a point to be more cautious with their money going forward. Plus, on the bright side, the longtime Hollywood couple found a great way to take their minds off their finances being decimated overnight. "We kind of went, 'Holy s**t,' you know? [...] 'I don't know. Let's have sex or something,'" Bacon proudly informed GQ in 2015, while humorously agreeing with the interviewer, "It's free!'"

In what may very well go down as the weirdest game of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" in history, the eighties icon and wife Kyra Sedgwick discovered after nearly a quarter-century of marriage that they were, in fact, distant cousins. This revelation came to light in 2012, when the celebrity couple took part in the genealogy-focused PBS series "Finding Your Roots." Fortunately, their shared heritage is a proud one. As it turns out, Bacon and Sedgwick's forebears were early members of the anti-slavery movement in America. "Bacon's Quaker ancestors repudiated slavery long before the rest of the country, in 1780," PBS confirmed of its findings (via People). 

Likewise, "Sedgwick's ancestor Theodore Sedgwick argued the freedom case of Elizabeth Freeman, also known as 'Mumbet,' in 1781 — which helped bring an end to slavery in Massachusetts." The A-list couple didn't exactly sweat this news too much, though, given just how tenuous their familial connection is. "I figured I was going to be related to Kevin Bacon — I mean, most white people are related, ultimately," Sedgwick hilariously quipped during a 2017 Television Critics Association panel (via TheWrap). The Emmy winner continued, "I wasn't surprised, honestly. Frankly, I figured that was part the reason that they wanted to do both of us. I had to act surprised."