The times, they are a-changin’! While the concept of non-monogamy has been around as long as there have been relationships, only in recent years have non-monogamous relationships begun to come into the mainstream — which means that people are finally bringing these much-needed conversations about how to have ethicall non-monogamous relationships out into the open. Celebrities have been a huge part of that push toward normalizing open relationships, with stars like Angelina Jolie and Dolly Parton publicly declaring that they don’t believe total fidelity is necessary toward making a relationship work. And while it wasn’t exactly her plan, Jada Pinkett Smith brought open relationships back to the forefront of our minds this year once again, as we revisited statements both she and husband Will Smith have made about open relationships in light of Jada’s entanglement with August Alsina. As Will and Jada celebrate their 23rd wedding anniversary today, those in open relationships don’t have just anybody representing their perspective in Hollywood — they’ve got one of the longest-lasting celebrity marriages out there.
When celebrities talk about their experience of being in an open relationship or why they prefer it, you hear the same thing over and over. The difference between a non-monogamous relationship and plain old cheating is being honest with your partner about your desires and working toward a solution that incorporates their needs. And the freedom, as a result, is being in a relationship where you have your partner’s total trust.
Everyone’s relationship is different, and these celebrities can’t speak to everyone’s experience. But the more voices we hear about polygamous relationships, the less stigma there is overall — and who knows? One day, you may be curious how this works too.
Read on for all the celebrities who have opened up about open relationships.
A version of this article was previously published in December 2020.
Jada Pinkett Smith
Jada Pinkett and husband Will Smith have dodged rumors of a “swingers” lifestyle in their relationship for years, so Jada set the record straight with a 2013 HuffPost Live interview.
“Here’s the deal with that… you’ve got to trust who you’re with,” she said. “And at the end of the day, I’m not here to be anybody’s watcher. I’m not [Will’s] watcher. He’s a grown man. Here’s what I trust — I trust that the man that Will is, is the man of integrity. So, he’s got all the freedom in the world. As long as Will can look himself in the mirror and be okay, I’m good.”
Will Smith
While Jada describes the importance of Will being right with himself, the Gemini star’s feelings in 2005 seemed to hinge more on his wife’s approval when it came to making connections outside the marriage.
“Our perspective is, you don’t avoid what’s natural,” he told Daily Mail in 2005. “You’re going to be attracted to people. In our marriage vows, we didn’t say ‘forsaking all others.’ The vow that we made was that you will never hear that I did something after the fact. If it came down to it, then one can say to the other, ‘Look, I need to have sex with somebody. I’m not going to if you don’t approve of it — but please approve of it.'”
Dolly Parton
If anyone has advice to give out, it’s Dolly Parton, who has been married to husband Carl Dean for over 50 years. Their policy is one of “don’t ask, don’t tell” — with the understanding that they’re both all in on that arrangement.
“If we cheat we don’t know it, so if we do cheat, it’s very good for both us,” she said in 2007. “I don’t want to know it, if he’s cheating on me. If I’m cheating on him, he wouldn’t want to know it. And if we do, if that’s what’s making it work, then that’s fine too.”
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie didn’t get into any specifics of what was or wasn’t okay in her and Brad Pitt’s marriage — but she definitely confirmed that fidelity was not a make-or-break feature for her in a relationship.
“I doubt that fidelity is absolutely essential for a relationship … It’s worse to leave your partner and talk badly about him afterwards,” she told Das Neue in 2009. “Neither Brad nor I have ever claimed that living together means to be chained together. We make sure that we never restrict each other.”
Ultimately, it still comes down to respect being shown between the two partners: “The sparks fly at home if the nice Brad fails to see that he’s wrong and reacts in a defiant way,” she added at the time.
Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine was married to Steve Parker from 1954 to 1982, and she credits their non-monogamous way of doing things with the relationships being as good as it was.
“I guess you would say ‘practiced an open marriage’ in 1954, which was another lifetime,” MacLaine told People in 2016. “No one understood it, we did. He lived in Japan basically, I lived in America working, and this and that. We’d meet up, always great friends, traveled sometimes together.”
“I think that’s the basis for a long-lasting marriage, if you really want to do such a thing,” she added. “I would say better to stay friends and we don’t have enough time to talk about the sexuality of all. I was very open about all of that and so was he.”
Brody Jenner
Caitlyn Jenner’s son Brody Jenner has since split with wife Kaitlynn Carter, but in 2015, he spoke to GQ about the very specific open nature of his and Carter’s relationship: their habit of having threesomes with another woman together.
“We’re not opposed to having somebody else join in on our sexcapades,” he said. Later, “A lot of people are nervous to bring up that subject, ‘Hey, what about having a threesome?’ I truly believe that a lot more people are a lot more receptive than you think. And when the conversation was brought up, Kaitlynn said, ‘I actually don’t mind that at all.’ So I was extremely excited about that.”
Shailene Woodley
Big Little Lies star Shailene Woodley has never confirmed exactly who she’s been in an open relationship with, she told the New York Times in 2020 that her past experiences with non-monogamy definitely left her open to trying it again in the future.
“Listen, I’m someone who has experienced both an open relationship and a deeply monogamous relationship in my life, and I think we’re in a day and age where there should be no rules except for the ones designed by two people in a partnership—or three people, whatever floats your boat!” she said.
“But there has to be a level of responsibility in any relationship dynamic, and that responsibility is simply honesty and communication and trust,” she added. “Apart from that, it’s really none of our business what people choose to do with their lives.”
Ethan Hawke
Before Ethan Hawke was an example of an open marriage, he was an example of a man who stepped out of a closed one: to Uma Thurman, specifically, on whom he all-but-certainly cheated with now-wife Ryan. And while Ethan and Ryan’s arrangement seems transparent, he certainly doesn’t seem to have hard feelings about miscommunications in his last marriage.
“My relationship with my present wife is thrilling to me and I’m committed to it, but neither she nor I know what shape the future will come in,” he said in 2013, per E! News. “Sexual fidelity can’t be the whole thing you hang your relationship on. If you really love somebody you want them to grow, but you don’t get to define how that happens. They do.”
“People have such a childish view of monogamy and fidelity…as opposed to a recognition that our species is not monogamous,” he added. “To act all indignant, that your world has been rocked because your lover wasn’t faithful to you, is a little bit like acting rocked that your hair went grey. Human beings are sexual beings.”
Thomas Middleditch
Silicon Valley star Thomas Middleditch didn’t know that he wanted to be polygamous until after he married his wife Mollie Gates in 2015, he told Playboy years later. He then goes on to explain that his wife was willing to work with him, but that they’ve maintained a dynamic of push and pull, where he always wants more openness and she always wants less. As of 2020, Gates has filed for divorce.
“I don’t know how much I can say, because I don’t want my wife to be mad at me,” Middleditch said in Sept. 2019. “Only after I got married was I like, ‘Mollie, I’m sorry, but we have to get nontraditional here.’ To her credit, instead of saying ‘Fuck you, I’m out,’ she was like, ‘Let’s figure this out.’ To be honest, swinging has saved our marriage. We have different speeds, and we argue over it constantly, but it’s better than feeling unheard and alone and that you have to scurry in the shadows.”
“Myself and a lot of other people who start on this journey don’t know where they’re at in it,” he added. “They’re going, ‘I think I just need a thing to happen. All I know is, this particular situation is hard.’ I love my wife like I’ve never loved anyone before. With two people who feel that way about each other, how do you go down that road? It’s tough. Bring a therapist along for the ride.”
Willow Smith
Back in April 2021, Willow Smith opened about her approach to relationships during an episode of Red Table Talk. The young singer revealed she’s polyamorous, telling her mother, Jada Pinkett Smith, and maternal grandmother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, “With polyamory, I feel like the main foundation is the freedom to be able to create a relationship style that works for you and not just stepping into monogamy because that’s what everyone around you says is the right thing to do,” per Insider.
“So I was like, ‘How can I structure the way that I approach relationships with that in mind?’ Also, doing research into polyamory, the main reason why divorces happen is infidelity.” Although some, like Willow’s own grandmother, admittedly assume that the appeal of a polyamorous relationship (in which a person engages in multiple romantic relationships with each partners consent) is sex, Willow explained in her “friend group, I’m the only polyamorous person, and I have the least sex out of all my friends.”
Mo’Nique
Oscar-winning actress Mo’Nique has also been up front about her marriage to husband Sidney Hicks. In an August 2007 profile, the Precious actress told the New York Times that she and Hicks “have an agreement that we’ll always be honest, and if sex happens with another person, that’s not a deal breaker for us, that’s not something where we’ll have to say, ‘Oh God, we’ve got to go to divorce court because you cheated on me.’ Because we don’t cheat.”
The actress further reiterated her stance during an appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show. “When I said I had an open marriage, people automatically jumped to sex. They automatically went there,” she said. “But I’ve been best friends with my husband since we were 14 years old. When we say open, we’re very honest. There are no secrets. Oftentimes you have people that are married, but they’re strangers, and we refuse to be those people.”
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