Reese Witherspoon, Patrick Dempsey and 9 Other Celebrities Who Married Normals
Many famous celebrities pair up with — and even marry — people who live their lives outside of the spotlight.
Overview
Many celebrities end up in relationships with fellow stars. It makes sense, after all. Working long hours together day after day on a movie or TV set tends to inspire people to fall in love by proximity. Plus, having a similar lifestyle, with the common perks and pitfalls that go with it, can definitely be a bonus when dating someone.
However, many famous ladies and gents actually pair up with — and even marry — people who live their lives outside the spotlight. If the following couples are any indication, wedding "normals" may be a winning strategy for lasting love in Hollywood. Here are 10 couples that are going strong.
1. George Clooney
Before (finally!) putting a ring on British human rights attorney Amal Alamuddin, Clooney went through a bevy of babes, from Kelly Preston to Lisa Snowdon to Renee Zellweger. His penchant for dating but never settling down made many wonder if he'd remain a bachelor forever. (His early '90s marriage to "Mad Men" star Talia Balsam is often forgotten.)
Then Clooney met Alamuddin in 2013 at Lake Como, and the rest is history. "I thought she was beautiful, and I thought she was funny and obviously smart," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "She probably thought I was old." Clooney proposed six months later, they married in 2014 and soon after welcomed twins, Alexander and Ella.
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2. Reese Witherspoon
After splitting from fellow actor Ryan Phillippe in 2006, with whom Witherspoon has two kids, the "Big Little Lies" star found love again, this time with talent agent Jim Toth. The couple got together in 2010 and quickly got engaged. They wed a year later and soon welcomed a son.
Witherspoon said recently on Instagram that her husband "keeps me smiling every day," but there's more than happiness keeping this relationship strong. Apparently, Toth doesn't just fulfill his actress wife emotionally, he also inspires her to keep advocating for herself and other women. "I get a lot of support from my husband, who cares deeply about equality," she said in an interview in Marie Claire. "He's encouraged me to be outspoken."
3. Matt Damon
Single mom Luciana Barroso met Hollywood nice guy/hunk Damon while he was barhopping and she was bartending in Miami. "I literally saw her across a crowded room — literally," he said on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2011. "Eight years and four kids later, that's my life. I don't know how else our paths would've crossed if that didn't happen."
Married almost 13 years, the couple stays out of the limelight. "My wife's a civilian, and that takes a lot of pressure off," he told The Guardian newspaper in 2013. "There's nothing scandalous about a guy who's married and has kids. If [the paparazzi] come outside where I live, they are going to die of boredom — there's just nothing really going on that would sell a magazine."
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4. Eddie Redmayne
The "The Theory of Everything" star and his wife, public relations executive Hannah Bagshawe, were reportedly longtime college friends before their relationship turned romantic. Soon after a more-than-friends trip to Florence together, the couple married in a private English ceremony in 2014.
Timing of their nuptials, however, was less than ideal. Redmayne and Bagshawe had to cut their honeymoon short so he could attend the Golden Globes (he won!) and then went on to tackle the busy 2015 awards season together, which included more wins. The couple now has two children together, recently welcoming their son in March 2018.
5. Aaron Paul
Love can happen anywhere — even at Coachella. That's where "Breaking Bad" star Aaron Paul met activist Lauren Parsekian. "We had our first kiss on a ferris wheel at Coachella," Paul said on Reddit in 2013 while talking about his ideal vacation. "So anything that reminds us of that we're very excited to do."
Parsekian, who is the co-founder of Kind Campaign, echoed her husband's words on Instagram. "I will forever love that it was our love for music, the desert stars and the magic that is Spicy Pie that collided our worlds," she wrote in 2016. Now married for five years, the couple recently welcomed their daughter, Story Annabelle, in February 2018. It's no surprise that Paul can't wait to take his little one to the infamous Indio music festival. "Maybe next year," he told Conan O'Brien, shortly before she arrived.
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Zoe Saldana
Zoe Saldana married Italian artist Marco Perego in 2013, tying the knot in a small ceremony just months after their relationship began. Perego not only took his wife's last name, he also got a tattoo of her famous face on his arm.
After dating other celebs (she was once linked to Bradley Cooper) and even breaking off an engagement, Saldana finally feels like she has a true partner. "Since I've been with Marco, I've been lowering my guard," she told InStyle. "When we had our boys [Cy and Bowie], I looked at my husband and I realized: I was meant for you, and you were meant for me. I've always felt comfortable around men as long as they were friends. Now I finally feel comfortable with my lover."
Seth Meyers
When Seth Meyers met his wife Alexi Ashe at "Saturday Night Live" alum Chris Kattan's wedding, it was love at first sight. "I had a sense that she was the closest I'd ever met to someone who I could see myself with," he told YourTango.com. "Pretty much right away."
He and Ashe, a human rights lawyer, got hitched in 2013 and now have two children, the second of which was notably born in the lobby of their New York City apartment building, a story that Meyers emotionally recounted on "Late Night" while singing his wife's praises. In true comedic fashion, however, he shrugged off his tears saying, "I'm getting choked up thinking about how brave I was."
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Molly Simms
The actress and model said she knew that her film producer husband Scott Stuber was "the one" after just six months of dating. (The two had been friends before getting together.) "I didn't want to be with anyone else," she wrote on her blog to mark their fifth wedding anniversary. "I had fallen in love with Scott not only for the man I knew he was, but with the man I knew he would be: a great husband, father and true partner." The two wed when Simms was 38 and Stuber was 42.
After almost seven years and three kids together, the couple is still head over heels for each other, sharing a head-turning kiss at a premiere red carpet in December 2017.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
A notoriously private couple, Joseph Gordon-Levitt met Tasha McCauley, a technology entrepreneur, through mutual friends before quietly getting hitched at their home in 2014. For some time the actor wouldn't even speak the name of his beloved out of respect for her privacy. "I have a girlfriend, but I tend not to really like to talk about it in public," he said in 2013. "The girl that I'm with, she really doesn't want to be a part of that."
However, the couple, who now have two children, stepped out for a good cause in 2016, taking the stage at Seth Rogen and wife Lauren Miller's 5th Annual Hilarity for Charity Variety Show: HFC Halloween. Donning fake-blood-soaked duds, the pair lent their vocal talents to benefit Alzheimer's disease. Adorable!
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Patrick Dempsey
Patrick Dempsey has been married to hairstylist and makeup artist Jillian Fink since 1999, and the couple has three children together, Talula, Darby and Sullivan. They met when Dempsey made an appointment at Fink's salon for a fresh cut and, thinking the actor's name was on her appointment list as a joke, his soon-to-be wife was "shocked" when he actually walked in. The rest, as they say, is history.
The couple has now been married for 18 years, but they almost split in 2015 when Fink filed for divorce. After counseling and working together, they made it through and came out the other side even stronger. You can only do one thing at a time and do it well," Dempsey told People magazine about this time in their life. "I [learned] to prioritize. Our union has to be the priority. I wasn't prepared to give up on her, and she wasn't either. We both wanted to fight for it."
What Do YOU Think?
What do you think about Hollywood celebrities marrying "normal" people? What makes a relationship in the spotlight last? Which celebrity couple is your favorite?