In an industry of hookups and breakups, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell manage to stand out in a lot of ways. They represent the best-case scenario for a blended family, and yet Hawn and Russell refused to marry. It’s a topic they’ve often been questioned about and Hawn has provided some further insights into her reasoning.
Hawn and Russell’s history is a long one, with their paths first crossing in 1966 on the set of The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. But it wasn’t until working on 1983’s Swing Shift that they began to date – and have been together ever since. While the two have been married to others in the past, for this bond between them, Hawn wanted to skip the “ugly” parts, and so forwent getting married.
Goldie Hawn did not outright marry Kurt Russell to avoid what usually comes with splitting up
Speaking with CNN’s Chris Wallace, Hawn explored her unique relationship with Russell, which has seen them together for 40 years now despite the fact that they never decided to marry. For Hawn – who in the past had tied the knot with Gus Trikonis and Bill Hudson – history has all the answers.
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“It’s always ugly,” said Hawn, speaking of the part in a relationship when the couple splits – and a marriage ends up dissolved. “Somebody has to take a look and say, ‘How many divorces are fun? How many divorces actually don’t cost money? How many divorces make you hate the person more than you did before? How many divorces have hurt children?”
With this room for pain in mind, she answers the question with a query of her own, “Why should we get married?”
Russell shares her sentiment
When he first saw her in ’66, Russell recalled, “I thought she was awfully attractive. You couldn’t miss her. She just had this energy about her.” At the time, however, Russell was just 17 and Hawn was 22, so remembering her first time seeing her colleague and future partner, she thought he was “adorable, but he was much too young.”
Deciding not to marry was a choice agreed upon by both Hawn and Russell. Russell had been married to Season Hubley from ’79 to ’83; the two met while filming 1979’s Elvis. However, Russell does not cite history as his reason for not getting married; rather, he just sees no need for it.
“At that time, we constantly got asked, ‘When are you going to get married? Why aren’t you married?’” Russell recalled, speaking about the questions he and Hawn got in the early stages of their relationship. “And we were like, ‘Why does anybody care about that?’ We’d asked our kids if they cared about it. They didn’t. We didn’t.”
The two enjoy a balance of assured togetherness and independence, with Hawn further explaining that this keeps her from feeling locked into anything, and that every day is a choice to be in a partnership with Russell.
