'Don't Need a Paper to Be Devoted': What Stars Have Said About Choosing Not to Marry

Kaley Cuoco

In an April 2022 interview with Glamour, the twice-divorced Flight Attendant star said marriage is off the table for her going forward.

"I will never get married again. I would love to have a long-lasting relationship or a partnership. But I will never get married again. Absolutely not. You can literally put that on the cover," she said.

"But I believe in love because I've had incredible relationships. I know that they're out there. I like being someone's partner and having that companionship," she continued. "We've all been there where you think, 'Oh, my God, I'm never going to meet someone else.' And you do. There are great people that come into your life and they leave your life. And there are reasons for all of it. The minute that I agree to let it go, someone else magical comes into my life. So I do believe there is someone out there. I love love. I'm not someone that wants to be by myself. I just need to figure out my priorities a little bit."

Sandra Bullock

"I am someone who went through the divorce process. I found the love of my life," The Unforgivable actress said on Red Table Talk in December 2021. Bullock filed for divorce from ex-husband Jesse James in 2010 after nearly five years of marriage. In 2015, she began dating partner Bryan Randall.

"We share two beautiful children — three children, his older daughter. It's the best thing ever. I don't wanna say do it like I do it, but I don't need a paper to be a devoted partner and devoted mother."

Jamie Foxx

"The 2.5 children, the wood paneling on the station wagon and the cottage, I didn't think that was for me," the Spider-Man: No Way Home star told E! News' Daily Pop in October 2021.

"Growing up, [my daughter] Corrine was like, 'Well, people are married, and that's what they have, my friends.' But then a lot of those marriages ended up not doing well as the kids got older," Foxx continued. "Unfortunately, we saw the kids get fractures from their families. Us, we actually came together more. So I don't know what that is, I just know that it is different but it's a whole lot of love."

Foxx credits his decision to never marry as strengthening his bond with his two daughters — Corrine Foxx, 27, whom he shares with ex Connie Kline — and Anelise Bishop, 12, whom he shares with ex Kristin Grannis.

Kurt Russell & Goldie Hawn

"For people like us, the marriage certificate wasn't going to create anything that otherwise we wouldn't have," Russell told PEOPLE in 2020 of Hawn, his love of a lifetime.

The couple has been together since 1984, raising a tight-knit family unit. The stars share son Wyatt Russell, as well as their children from previous marriages — Russell's son Boston and Hawn's kids, actors Kate and Oliver Hudson.

"It's not about the marriage. It's about the people and the relationship, and the will to stay together," Hawn added. "And that's a big one because if you want it, you can have it. You've got to give things up, but the joy and the excitement of being together and touching the toes of somebody at night is really a nice feeling."

Drew Barrymore

"Never. Never, never, never. I will never get married again!" The Drew Barrymore Show host told PEOPLE in 2020. "And I also believe people should not say the word 'never,' and I will never, with a capital N-E-V-E-R, never get married."

"It's like I have two options: Cut it — this has not worked — or be Elizabeth Taylor. And I have too many more to go," the star, who has who has been married three times, continued. "I never want to be entwined with someone like that again ever. You break up, and you move on. You get divorced, and it's just so different."

That's not to say she doesn't remain open to the idea of another relationship.

"It doesn't mean that maybe I wouldn't like to meet someone, especially when my kids go off to college," Barrymore continued. "Or a year from now, I could be totally in love. I'm open to it; I'm not seeking it. My cup runneth over. I have so much love in my life."

Charlize Theron

"I never wanted to get married. That's never been something that's important to me," the Oscar winner, who has never married, said on The Howard Stern Show in 2020.

"On the lives of my children, I've never been lonely. I've never felt alone," the mom to daughters August, 6, and Jackson, 9, continued.

"My life right now just doesn't allow a lot of room for something like that to happen. But in saying that, there's not this thing that drives me [to have a romantic relationship]."

Shakira

"To tell you the truth, marriage scares the s--- out of me. I don't want him to see me as the wife. I'd rather him see me as his girlfriend," Shakira told CBS News of her relationship with Gerard Piqué. The singer and the soccer star first met in 2010, and share sons Milan, 8, and Sasha, 6.

"His lover, his girlfriend. It's like a little forbidden fruit, you know? I wanna keep him on his toes," she teased. "I want him to think that anything's possible depending on behavior."

Oprah Winfrey

"Both he and I now say, 'If we had married, we would not be together,' " the media mogul told PEOPLE in 2019 of her longtime partnership with Stedman Graham, whom she met in 1986.

"No question about it — we would not stay married, because of what that would have meant to him, and I would have had my own ideas about it."

Kris Jenner

"I don't have the need to put on a long, white dress and walk down an aisle. I've done that," Jenner said on the Divorce Sucks! Podcast in 2018.

"I think that I just feel really grateful and blessed for my past experiences and I'm looking forward to my future and I just don't think that I want to go there."

The Keeping Up with the Kardashians alumna been married and divorced twice: first to the late Robert Kardashian Sr. from 1978 to 1991, and then to Caitlyn Jenner from 1991 to 2014. Since splitting with the Olympian, the momager has dated boyfriend Corey Gamble.

Ricky Gervais & Jane Fallon

"We're not married because neither of [us] are fussed," Fallon told the Daily Mail in 2018 of her partnership with the comedian; the couple has been together since 1982.

"I think if one of us really cared then we would probably do it but it's not really been anything that either of us have ever really needed," she added.

Whoopi Goldberg

"No, I think I'm not that interested [in marriage.] I'm much happier on my own. I can spend as much time with somebody as I want to spend, but I'm not looking to be with somebody forever or live with someone," the co-host of The View told The New York Times in 2016. "I don't want somebody in my house."

"I'm the round peg, and marriage is the square hole," the EGOT winner, who has been married three times, continued. "You can't have a square hole, can you?"

Ryan Gosling

"I know that I'm with the person I'm supposed to be with," the Golden Globe winner told Hello! in 2015 of his relationship with Eva Mendes, which began in 2011. Famously private about their partnership and family life, the couple share daughters Esmeralda, 7, and Amada, 5.

When pressed in the interview about what he looked for in love, Gosling insisted that the other thing that mattered is "that she's Eva Mendes. There's nothing else I'm looking for."

Kristin Davis

"I don't know that I necessarily totally intended to [still be single], though I do remember being young and thinking, 'Why are all these people getting married?' " the And Just Like That ... star, who has never married, told Haute Living in 2013. "But I'm an actress — I've never exactly been the status quo."

Diane Kruger

"Without sounding pessimistic, I learned that I don't believe in marriage," the star told Glamour in 2012. "I believe in a commitment that you make in your heart. There's no paper that will make you stay."

Kruger divorced director Guillaume Canet in 2006 after five years of marriage, and dated Joshua Jackson for a decade after. The actors called it quits in 2016, and Kruger met Norman Reedus around the same time. In November 2018, PEOPLE confirmed that that Kruger and Reedus welcomed their first child together — a baby girl.

Susan Sarandon

"I've always liked the idea of choosing to be with somebody," the actress told The Telegraph in 2010. "I thought that if you didn't get married, you wouldn't take each other for granted as easily. I don't know if after twentysomething years that was still true."

In 2009, Sarandon and partner Tim Robbins split after 23 years together. The exes share sons Jack and Miles; the Thelma & Louise star is also mom to daughter Eva Amurri. Sarandon only married once, wedding her college sweetheart Chris Sarandon in 1967 and splitting from him in 1979.