It's no secret that Hollywood relationships can get a bit messy, dramatic, and heartbreaking, but on the off chance they do go right, some of the longest relationships happen. With how often Hollywood couples split up, it's actually sometimes surprising to see how some couples end up together until death do they part. Maybe Hollywood should take a page from Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell's book.
Dating in Hollywood is already a dangerous game (some actors/actresses have forgone dating within Hollywood, choosing to date non-showbiz people, i.e. George Clooney and Eddy Redmayne) but when you start dating a co-star that's even more dangerous. Couples who spring to mind who have tried and failed are Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, and Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth, but one of the most iconic long-lasting couples who have survived the test of time, and met on set, and who beat everyone out of the park is Hawn and Russell's relationship.
The biggest reason the pair have become this mega couple who continuously count away the years together is that they established very early on in their relationship that they would never get married, and wouldn't ever find the need to in the future, having both been married and divorced before. But their origins started off like any other on-set love affair. They met on the set of a Disney movie no less, and Hawn's first film, The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band in 1966. Hawn was 21 at the time and Russell 16, but their impressions of each other stuck until the next time they ran into each other.
"I thought he was adorable, but he was much too young," Hawn told BBC Radio 4. "Then, years later we met up again, and I remembered that I liked him very much when I first met him. We both said we would never go out with another actor so it just shows you never can tell."
Nearly 17 years later they met again when they co-starred in 1983's Swing Shift. Russell told Conan O' Brian, "I was severely hungover and I didn't know Goldie at all outside of having worked with her those many years before. I just didn't have in my mind what I was going to see, and she had a great body. So the first thing that came out was, 'Man, you've got a great figure.' It came out quickly and it could've gone wrong, and she said, 'Why thank you.'" That was all it took to start a relationship that has lasted more than 35 years and still counting.
What proceeded was a hilarious first date at the Playboy Club and then after, a scene where Hawn and Russell were busted by the cops for breaking into Hawn's new house (she didn't have the key yet). Three years later they had their son Wyatt and a year later they co-starred for the third time on Overboard, only this time they were an item.
In 2007, years after initially getting together, making a bunch of movies together, and having one son, Hawn addressed the age-old question of why they hadn't been married yet. "We have done just perfectly without marrying," Hawn told Woman's Day. "I already feel devoted and isn't that what marriage is supposed to do? So as long as my emotional state is in a state of devotion, honesty, caring, and loving, then we're fine. We have raised our children brilliantly; they are beautiful people. We did a great job there, and we didn't have to get married to do that. I like waking up every day and seeing that he is there and knowing that I have a choice. There is really no reason to marry."
They got a dual star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2017, and then in 2018, Russell told People, "Look, I’ve said this for 34 years, I don’t think Goldie and I, in real terms, are any different than any other couple; we go through all the same things. But the important thing of who the two people are in a relationship is what you have to deal with. There’s gonna be ups and downs and sideways and everything else. I just think after 34 years you’re gonna have experienced every emotion that you can together."
In fact, if the couple had gotten married all those years ago, Hawn believes that they would have gotten a divorce eventually. Hawn told Vanity Fair that she believes "there’s something psychological about not being married because it gives you the freedom to make decisions one way or the other. For me, I chose to stay. Kurt chose to stay, and we like the choice."
"A lasting relationship isn’t about marriage. It’s about compatibility and communication. And you both need to want it to work," Hawn said in an interview with Porter in 2015. "If one person does not want it to work, it isn’t going to work. Intention is the key. It’s also about not losing yourself in each other. Being together, two pillars holding up the house and the roof, and being different, not having to agree on everything, learning how to deal with not agreeing. Everything’s a choice."
After all these years, the pair have raised four children, and are now helping raise their grandchildren. They continue to support each other on the red carpets and show up anyone in Hollywood who isn't doing too good in their own relationships. Not going to lie, we're kinda jealous of them.
