More and more celebrities lately have been getting honest about their marriage and relationships not being perfect and taking work in order to make things stronger.
Stars like Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have been married for more than three decades and the 66-year-old actor opened up in the past about what he and Wilson have found that makes their marriage work in a place like Hollywood where nothing seems to last.
The “Cast Away” star and Rita worked together on his 1985 comedy “Volunteers,” but he was married and was a young parent at the time, E! News noted. By the end of 1986 they were a couple and his divorce to his first wife was official in early 1987. Hanks and Wilson made things official in 1988 and now 35 years later, they are still going strong.
“When I married Rita, I thought, ‘This is going to require some change on my part,'” Hanks told Oprah Winfrey in 2001. “I won’t deny that providence was part of us finding each other, but our relationship isn’t magic — the way it’s shown in movies.”
View this post on Instagram
“In real life, our connection is as concrete as me sitting here,” he added. “Not that marriage doesn’t come close to being hell in a handbasket sometimes. But we both know that no matter what, we’ll be with each other — and we’ll get through it.”
“People say, ‘Jeez, it must be hard to stay married in show business,'” Hanks told The Mirror in 2016. “I think it’s hard to stay married anywhere, but if you marry the right person, it might work out. We give each other a natural sense of support for whatever the other wants to pursue.”
More recently, stars like Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom — who are engaged and have yet to tie the knot after the pandemic sidelined the couple’s wedding plans — have not held back when admitting juggling two very different careers isn’t easy, but worth it.
Perry and Bloom made headlines in 2019 when they got engaged after being together for three years. In August 2020, the couple welcomed their first child together, a daughter, Daisy Dove.
The 46-year-old actor recently talked about his relationship with his fiancé, calling aspects of it “really, really, really challenging,” but said he feels “blessed” that the two found each other, as previously reported.
View this post on Instagram
“We’re in two very different pools,” Bloom shared. “Her pool is not a pool that I necessarily understand, and I think my pool is not a pool that she necessarily understands. Sometimes things are really, really, really, challenging. I won’t lie.'”
“We definitely battle with our emotions and creativity,” he added. “But I think we’re both aware of how blessed we are to have uniquely connected in the way that we did at the time that we did, and there’s definitely never a dull moment.”
The “American Idol” judge also made news recently when she posted a message on Instagram that read, “Orlando and I’s initials are O.K. We continuously put in the work to make sure they aren’t K.O.”
“Find yourself a partner that will go down to the mat with you and get back up every time,” she added. “I love you my fighter [OrlandoBloom].”
Bloom was previously married to model Miranda Kerr from 2010-2013, and the pair share a son. Perry and Russell Brand tied the knot in 2010 and divorced two years later.
Country singer Keith Urban opened up about his 16 years of marriage to superstar Nicole Kidman in 2022 and explained that marriage isn’t always easy, but it’s worth the work.
View this post on Instagram
“It’s two people, just trying to figure out how to make it work like any couple’s trying to figure out how to make it work,” Urban told 103.7 KSON in San Diego. “We’ve all got our circumstances and challenges; whatever they are, we just figure it out a day at a time.”
“Everybody figures out what works for them,” he added. “We’ve figured out what works for us. And that’s why, when people ask me for advice, I don’t have any, because you’ve got to work out what works for you two, not for anybody else.”
Speaking to Australia’s “Today” show in 2021, the actress said despite it appearing like they have the perfect relationship, she doesn’t want her marriage to be seen as that.
“We don’t want to be a pin-up couple,” Kidman said. “We just want to be a couple that has a great life together.”
“Everyone has the right to their own relationship,” she added. “We are just very protective of our little bubble. What works for us is what works for us.”
Kidman and Urban tied the knot in 2006 and share two kids together. She was previously married to Tom Cruise and shares two kids with him.
Reality TV star Chip Gaines- who gained fame with he and wife Joanna Gaines home design show “Fixer Upper” on HGTV-recently opened up about how the couple will soon celebrate their 20-year wedding anniversary and admitted it “hasn’t been the perfect story,” Fox News noted.
“We’ve had to fight like hell for our family and learn to hold loosely what we can’t control,” Gaines said in the summer issue of their Magnolia Journal. “But we did all that together. The two of us.”
“Marriage is interesting that way,” he added. “Whatever I go through, Jo goes through. And whatever she goes through, I go through. Life has done us plenty of favors and showed us things we’ve been beyond blessed to see.”
“We’ve also had some hard times—some the world knows about, and plenty it doesn’t,” Chip continued. “Like anyone else, we’ve been sick and sad and hurt and lost and flat out of ideas on how to turn things around.”
And now 20 years later with five kids, Gaines said it’s those hard times that bonded them. “We might’ve wished back then for calmer seas and slower days when we were in the thick of parenting small kids and growing a business alongside them, but now I wouldn’t wish any of it away,” he added.
“I’m so thankful to God for giving us exactly what we’ve had, and for what I know we still have ahead: plenty to build—hand-in-hand,” Gaines continued.