12 Celebs Who Didn't Get Married Until Their 40s

The idea of marriage has long been treated more like a deadline and less as a personal choice, marketed largely as a young person's game. And while this social belief system transcends eras and cultures, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that Hollywood has played its part in reinforcing those dated expectations through picture-perfect romantic fantasies that revolve around couples getting a head start on their happily-ever-afters in their youth. 

Ironically, many of this industry's own denizens have turned this supposed ideal on its head by easing into milestones like marriage and parenthood much later in their lives. While these convention-bending decisions have invited a world of scrutiny — especially in the case of female celebs — patience boded well for many of these stars, who were able to begin their marital journeys on sturdy foundations backed by successful careers, strong personal identities, and wisdom that only comes with age.  

Here are 12 celebs who didn't get married until their 40s and why they felt it was worth the wait. 

From the moment she waltzed onto our screens in that fiery red dress in "The Mask," Cameron Diaz cemented her place as the dream girl of millions. That status only magnified over the years as she rose through the ranks of Hollywood's hottest properties, delivering success after success. But even as the world fantasized about her, Diaz resisted the pressure to tie herself down to one person until the right relationship came along — which it did in the form of Benji Madden. 

In 2014, sparks flew between Diaz and the musician, who had known each other for years through common friends, and within a year, the two were hitched. Diaz was 42 at the time and said that the possibility of marriage only opened up to her because of Madden. "I think it's a matter of I just hadn't met my husband ... I had boyfriends before, and there's a really, really distinct difference between husbands and boyfriends," she said at a Goop event in 2017 (via People). 

Diaz further shrugged off convention by welcoming her first child in her late 40s — and then two more afterward. Her bustling domestic life pulled her away from showbiz for years, and she quit acting to focus on the unorthodox path she chose as an older mom. "The only pressure for me now is I have to live to be, like, 107, you know? So, no pressure!" she joked on "No Filter With Naomi."

Salma Hayek's 40s were a transformative period in her life, dotted with milestones people are typically expected to embrace in their youth. At 41, she became a first-time mother by welcoming a daughter with partner François-Henri Pinault, whom she married a year later. As with many celebs who resisted the idea of marriage until meeting their better halves at an older age, Hayek admitted to Glamour that she was terrified of the institution and had to practically be dragged to court. 

"I didn't even know I was getting married that day," the "Desperado" star recalled about her 2009 nuptials to Pinault, whom she had dated for about two years before her surprise big day. "My parents, my brother, they were all ganging up on me. I had a phobia of the marriage thing." Ironically enough, while Hayek eventually found her footing and settled into marital bliss with her French billionaire husband, the rest of the world turned critical of their union — a response Hayek pegged to racist stereotyping. 

"A lot of people are very shocked that I married who I married. And some people are even intimidated now by me," she told Town & Country magazine, referencing the massive net worth of her husband, who heads Kering, the parent company of luxury labels like Gucci and Balenciaga. "They can't believe this Mexican ended up in the life that she has, and they're uncomfortable around me." 

Jessica Sklar and Jerry Seinfeld's love story unfolded in a quintessentially old-school (and slightly scandalous) manner in the '90s. It was at the gym that the comedian met his future wife, who at the time had just gotten hitched to Eric Nederlander, a scion of the powerful theater-associated family. Though the odds seemed to be against them initially, things began falling into place when Sklar divorced her husband only weeks after meeting Seinfeld in 1998. 

As sensational as the moment was, it paved the way for Sklar and Seinfeld to embark on what would be one of the most successful age-gap relationships showbiz had ever seen. At the age of 45, Seinfeld married Sklar, who is 17 years his junior. "Forty-five is late to get married. Clearly, I had some issues and I was enjoying those issues while I had them," Seinfeld joked on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" in his signature deadpan style. In fact, it was that very legendary comedic charm that first appealed to Seinfeld to his author wife, whom he has kept laughing all these years.

For the better part of her life, Venus Williams chased greatness on the court, collecting every decoration from Grand Slam titles to Olympic medals and reshaping women's tennis as one of the most competent players the game has ever seen. So in her 40s, when she took time out from her busy training schedules and tournaments to take the marital plunge, she brought that same astute precision to selecting her partner. "It's about good family, good values, has a job," she said on her "Stockton Street" podcast (via X). "Of course, attraction has to be there, but you can be attracted to someone because of their family, their values, and because they take care of themselves." 

Model-actor Andrea Preti appeared to fulfill that checklist, and in 2025, at the age of 45, Williams locked things down with him in a lavish ceremony in Florida. The two had first crossed paths during a chance meeting in 2024 at the Milan Fashion Week, where Preti introduced himself to the tennis legend. "We had a little talk, and I asked if she wanted a drink," Preti told Vogue, recalling the seamlessness with which their relationship progressed after that first encounter. Williams, who at the time had been living the single life for six years, was swiftly convinced that she wanted to spend forever with Preti: "People always say they just know, and I just knew." 

Amy Adams was 40 when she married actor Darren Le Gallo in 2015 — and the milestone had been a long time coming. Their low-key nuptials followed an engagement that stretched on for seven long years; not because their relationship lacked staying power or was marred by intermittent breakups, as is common in Hollywood. The delay, caused primarily by Adams' busy work schedules and soaring film successes, was a happy example of women rejecting the idea that marriage carries an expiration date. 

Still, Adams felt some semblance of guilt. "I've been really busy, and I feel like a horrible fiancée that I haven't gotten swept up in the whole idea of a wedding. But I just haven't," she told Allure in 2009, a year into her engagement (via People). It helped that Le Gallo wasn't on her tail to legalize their relationship, although Adams did admit that traces of anxiety had begun to creep into her then-fiancé's patience. "He's sort of, you know, 'This is going to happen, right?' Adams explained. "He's much more ready for kids and stuff than I am." As it so happened, the actor couple ended up welcoming a child before eventually saying their "I dos." 

Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig's relationship has been setting the gold standard for picture-perfect Hollywood love for well over a decade. The good-looking pair first met in the '90s but only got entangled romantically in the 2010s. After finding each other again, they wasted no time in tying the knot, saying their "I dos" just six months into dating. While Craig had been married before, it was the first such milestone for the then-41-year-old Weisz, who, like many late-blooming celebrity brides, admitted to being initially averse to the idea of marriage. 

"I never thought I would get married," she told the Belfast Telegraph, revealing that getting hitched wasn't something she aspired to. "I couldn't relate to romantic comedies — marriage seems to be the whole point of them." As they say, though, when the timing was right, things naturally fell into place. "Then it just happened, happily, at a more mature moment." They welcomed one child together. 

While fans are forever in awe of Weisz and Craig and cherish them as one of showbiz's most gracefully aging celeb couples, few details about their partnership escape the confines of their privately guarded domestic life. As Weisz put it to More magazine on the subject of keeping her relationship to the Bond star under wraps: "He's just too famous. It would be a betrayal. You have to protect your marriage" (via ABC News).

Josh Lucas' love story with Jessica Ciencin Henriquez began with a meet-cute that could well have been something straight out of a Hollywood rom-com. The duo — one an actor with films like "Sweet Home Alabama" under his belt and the other a writer whose work spans top publications — famously crossed paths for the first time at a dog park in New York in 2011. "It was one of those weird, chance, classic New York meetings. I don't believe in love at first sight at all, but lightning definitely struck," she told HuffPost. Their romance accelerated quickly, and Lucas and Henriquez tied the knot just a year after their fateful encounter. Lucas was 40 at the time. 

The pair lived in marital bliss — navigating everything from parenthood to Henriquez's cancer journey — for about two years before the cracks in their relationship became apparent to the world. By 2014, things blew over, with Henriquez filing for divorce from her actor husband. Though Lucas at the time said that their split happened on amicable terms, it became clear over the years that the underlying reality was far more complicated than the united front they both presented as co-parents and on-and-off lovers. Henriquez's candid disclosures about their attempts to be "the world's friendliest exes," as she put it to Time magazine, peeled back the layers of their unusual dynamic, even culminating in accusations that Lucas cheated on her.

The beginning of David Harbour and Lily Allen's love story was as Gen Z-coded as a 21st-century relationship can get. The two stars apparently met on the celebrity dating app Raya and took to each other rather quickly. "She claims to have fallen in love at first sight with me — I mean, who wouldn't?" Harbour joked to GQ, revealing that it took him a few dates, meanwhile, to realize his love for the singer. "I remember the exact moment ... I told her something about my life, about my beliefs. It would take a really extraordinary person to be accepting of the things that I said." Their relationship picked up the pace after that, and after just a year of dating, Harbour and Allen were married. 

Allen had been through a marriage and divorce before tying the knot with Harbour in 2020, but for the "Stranger Things" star, who was 45 at the time, it was a first. They had a quintessentially freewheeling Vegas wedding, complete with an Elvis impersonator to officiate and In-N-Out burgers to follow. Given the way the duo gushed about each other in public, it seemed that theirs was a relationship built to last. However, despite their swoon-worthy exhibitions of love, fans couldn't help but notice certain red flags in Harbour and Allen's marriage. Sure enough, their fairy tale came apart in 2025, with news of the couple's separation, allegedly spurred on by infidelity, flooding headlines.

Once upon a time, Jessica Chastain belonged to that rebellious club of people who completely swear off the idea of marriage. But that was before she met Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo. The two crossed paths back in 2012, fatefully on the same joyous day that Chastain found out that she was nominated for her first Oscar for "The Help." As she gushed on "Live With Kelly and Mark": "It's probably the best day I ever had ... It was the beginning of my career and then I met my future husband." 

Of course, considering her nonconformist views on marriage, Chastain wasn't looking at Preposulo as a prospective husband just then — and she told him as much. Slowly, as their relationship evolved, so did Chastain's approach to it. "Then as we got to know each other, the idea of marriage shifted for me," she told The Wall Street Journal. "There are some things worth celebrating — and he's worth celebrating." 

The pair tied the knot in a fairy-tale ceremony befitting Preposulo's noble heritage at his grand family estate in Italy, surrounded by their A-list friends. Chastain was 40 at the time. In the years since their 2017 wedding, the "Zero Dark Thirty" star has spoken effusively about her marital status, even declaring: "I actually love being married." 

For the better part of her life as a public figure, Kourtney Kardashian's story was dominated by her chaotic on-again, off-again relationship with ex-partner Scott Disick. While their saga continued for about a decade, in full public view on "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," no less, and resulted in three children, marriage never successfully materialized for the duo. That, for Kardashian, only happened in her 40s when she fell in love with Travis Barker — and thus ensued one of the most feverishly PDA-packed relationships in modern pop culture. 

About a year after setting fire to red carpets and social media with their makeout-heavy appearances, Kardashian and Barker tied the knot across three wedding ceremonies. For Kardashian, then 43, the milestone seemed to mark a major emotional shift in her life, which had previously been plagued by a longtime indecisiveness about marriage. 

According to Kardashian's past admissions, this hesitation stemmed from a variety of reasons that included witnessing the breakdown of her parents' marriage and always having a chorus of advisors dictating her decisions. Her betrothal to the Blink-182 drummer, however, appeared to happen on her own terms, at the right time. Not long before the two became a public item, Kardashian had told E! News on the topic of marriage: "I feel like I'm really content, but I think if it was the right situation, I think it's something that I would want."

For "Law & Order: SVU" mainstay Mariska Hargitay, her 40s felt like she had been granted a whole new lease on life. While television stardom came early for Hargitay — who has played the iconic investigator Olivia Benson since 1999 and holds the record for the longest-running prime-time character — she chose to check off several other personal milestones only later in her journey. Marriage was one of them — and for good reason. As she said on "Good Hang With Amy Poehler": "I don't think I could have handled a marriage earlier ... [I] had too much to learn. So, I just went straight to like, you know, the second husband." 

The husband in question turned out to be Hargitay's "Law & Order" co-star Peter Hermann, whom she met on the third season of the crime drama. Appearing on "The Drew Barrymore Show," the television star recalled being nervous during her first encounter with Hermann: "I felt he was very handsome, and it was distracting. ... Our first date, he asked me to go to church with him." And the rest, as they say, is history! Hargitay, at 40, tied the knot with Hermann in 2004, and the duo slowly expanded their family by becoming parents to three children. On the subject of motherhood, Hargitay held the same view as she did on marriage and was happy to have embraced it when she had already found her footing in life. 

It was all about the right timing for Julianna Margulies, who got hitched at the age of 41. Before she met her husband, attorney Keith Lieberthal, the "ER" star wasn't fully convinced that the concept of settling down with one person for life was for her. Coming from an unstable household with divorced parents shook Margulies' belief in the institution of marriage from an early age. Her love life as an adult didn't seem to inspire much confidence either. 

"[I]t took me a long time to get rid of my narrative of what marriage was and picking the wrong people, which is why I never felt like getting married because I just couldn't imagine a life with that person," she said on "The Kelly Clarkson Show," adding that all that changed when she crossed paths with Lieberthal. "[S]ix months in, I thought if he asked me to marry him tomorrow, I would." 

At the same time, considering the relationship age gap they shared, Marguiles left the door open for her partner to walk out if he wanted to. But the younger Lieberthal was hardly spooked, which impressed Margulies even more. "Age seems like a big deal to us women, especially when you hit 40 and you haven't had a child yet," she said. "And I wouldn't have been ready to have a kid or have a marriage until I was 40."