Celebrities Who Found Love Later in Life

For these stars, true love didn't come their way until they passed 40

Love comes in all shapes, sizes and for these stars, at all ages. Though there are a ton of celebrities who got married in their younger days, for some, true love didn't make its way to their doorsteps until they reached their 40s.

From George Clooney to Helen Hunt to Halle Berry, see the celebrities who found love later in life.

Keanu Reeves & Alexandra Grant

Though they had been friends since the early aughts, Keanu Reeves didn't make his first official red carpet debut with girlfriend Alexandra Grant until 2019. He was 55 at the time and she was 46.

The couple has since kept their romance largely out of the public eye, though they can be spotted displaying some PDA on the red carpet every now and again.

While at the Icon Awards in September 2023, Grant opened up about finding love later in life, telling PEOPLE, "The good news about falling in love as an adult is that I had built my own career by the time that my relationship had begun. I feel very confident in the relationship on the red carpet. I feel confident on it alone.”

"It's interdependent and independent in the best ways,” she concluded.

Helen Hunt & Jeffrey Nordling

After having been fixtures on each other's Instagram pages since 2022, Helen Hunt and Jeffrey Nordling made their relationship red carpet official when they arrived at the Los Angeles Philharmonic's 20th Anniversary Gala hand-in-hand back in October.

Hunt, 60 and Nordling, 61, previously attended a Willie Nelson concert together at the Hollywood Bowl and had spent time together in London, where Hunt was performing, the fall prior.

George Clooney

George Clooney had long been one of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors before Amal Alamuddin stole his heart in 2013.

The Gravity actor was 53 years old when he proposed to his now-wife of almost 10 years. "I knew fairly quickly that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Amal. When I asked her, we had never talked about it. There wasn't like 'Maybe we should get married,'" he said of proposing to the esteemed barrister.

"I dropped it on her … I have someone … who I care about more than I've cared about anything, so it's really nice."

The two got married in Venice in 2014 and welcomed twins Alexander and Ella on June 6, 2017.

Elton John

Sir Elton John was 46 years old when he met the love of his life, David Furnish, at a dinner party hosted by a mutual friend in 1993. And it didn't take long for the "Rocket Man" singer and the former advertising exec to hit it off: the very next day, the pair went on their first date, and the rest is history.

Sir Elton proposed to his beau in May 2005 and they entered a civil partnership in December of the same year. They then welcomed sons Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John on Dec. 25, 2010, and Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John on Jan. 11, 2013, via surrogate, before officially tying the knot on the ninth anniversary of their civil partnership on Dec. 21, 2014.

Niecy Nash

When Dahmer actress Niecy Nash began falling for Jessica Betts, her romantic feelings for the musician came as a surprise, given the fact that she had only been with men prior.

"I never saw her as someone I would date," Nash told PEOPLE in 2020. "But we began to see each other in a way we never had before."

During an appearance on Red Table Talk, Nash also shared that she was reluctant to date Betts at first, saying, "I was fearful that our friendship might not survive it. I never want [Jessica] to not be in my life, so I don't know what the running rules are."

Nonetheless, their chemistry prevailed. At 50 years old, Nash tied the knot with her love in an intimate ceremony attended by 24 friends and family members in August
2020.

Barbra Streisand & James Brolin

It's hard to imagine a time when Barbra Streisand and James Brolin weren't together, but in actuality, the two got together in 1996 when she was 54 and he was 56.

"I can't tell you how lucky I am that this would happen to me so late in life," Brolin said at their wedding — which took place two years after their first date — on July 1, 1998. "Every night is a new adventure. Sleeping is a waste of time. I can't wait to see her again in the morning."

Holland Taylor & Sarah Paulson

While Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor first met at a party in 2005, it wasn't until almost a decade later that the two would reconnect over social media and start dating.

"It's a long story. We met a very, very long time ago. I was with someone else; she was, too," Paulson revealed during an episode of Watch What Happens Live in 2019. "We sort of breezed by one another, and then started following each other on Twitter ..."

Billy Eichner, who was also a guest that evening, asked, "Holland Taylor slid into your DMs?"

"She actually did," Paulson replied. "Yeah, it's pretty great."

Though the pair chooses to keep their relationship lowkey, they've made several appearances together. Holland and Paulson made their red carpet debut at the 2016 Critics' Choice Awards, where Paulson was nominated for her supporting role in American Horror Story: Hotel and they also attended the 2019 premiere of Paulson's movie, Glass, together. Earlier this year, the lovebirds appeared hand-in-hand at Vanity Fair's Oscars party.

Cameron Diaz

Cameron Diaz found her happily ever at 43, when she married Benji Madden in January 2015, eight months after they started dating.

"I do think that marriage, when you can grow with someone, it's very important," she said while on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2016.

She continued, "Someone asked me, 'What's your favorite thing about being married?' and I said, 'I just learned so much about myself.' I didn't know these things. I would have never known them if I didn't have my husband to help me."

Diaz jokingly added, "And they said, 'What's the worst thing about being married?' It's like, 'Well I learned all these things about myself that I wish I didn't know. And I wouldn't have learned them if I didn't get married.' So it's a double-edged sword."

Diaz and Madden — who is seven years younger than his wife — welcomed their first child, daughter Raddix Madden, in late 2019.

David Foster

David Foster and Katharine McPhee first met when she was a contestant on American Idol and he stepped in as a guest mentor.

The two clicked, but only platonically. In fact, Foster and McPhee became such good friends, the music exec even played the piano during her 2008 wedding to actor Nick Cokas.

Rumors that the two were an item began swirling in 2017, following both of their divorces from their respective partners. McPhee separated from Cokas in 2014 and the divorce was finalized in 2016, while Foster's marriage to Yolanda Hadid ended in 2017.

McPhee and Foster confirmed their relationship when they made their red carpet debut at the 2018 Met Gala — and the "Over It" singer told Entertainment Tonight that they were having a "fun date night."

They got married on June 28, 2019, when Foster was 69 and McPhee was 35. The pair welcomed their first child together, son Rennie David, in February of 2021.

Halle Berry & Van Hunt

Though they've kept mum on how they met, Halle Berry and Van Hunt laid the foundation to their relationship by talking on the phone without seeing each other during the pandemic.

"We were forced to let only our brains connect and discover if we had a connection before our bodies decided to get involved," she revealed in an interview with AARP: The Magazine. "I'd never done it this way. I fell in love with his mind, his conversation."

The two have been going strong ever since, often making appearances on each other's Instagram pages.

Gabrielle Union

Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade's first meeting was hardly your standard meet-cute.

The couple first crossed paths at a Super Bowl party in 2007, where they were both tapped to co-host. According to E! News, Union told Essence that sparks weren't at all flying then.

"I stayed on one side of the room with my people," Union recalled. "We like to party and he doesn't drink at all. He was on the other side of the room holding bible study," she joked.

Clearly, what's meant to be will be. Following a brief break in early 2013, Union and Wade got engaged in December of the same year and wed on Aug. 30, 2014. Union was 42 at the time, while Wade was 33.

Mariska Hargitay

Mariska Hargitay and Peter Hermann's storybook love began when the latter made a guest appearance as defense attorney Trevor Langan on Law & Order: SVU.

The duo started dating shortly after filming wrapped when Hermann asked Hargitay to accompany him to church.

"We went to church together, and it was like getting hit with a lightning bolt," she told PEOPLE. "I just started sobbing. Peter thought I was crying because I was so moved by the service. No, it was because I was just overwhelmed, realizing he was the one."

The couple tied the knot in Santa Barbara, California, on Aug. 28, 2004 when she was 40 and he was 37.

Two years later, they welcomed son August Miklos Friedrich, then welcomed daughter Amaya Josephine and son Andrew Nicolas by adoption in 2011.

Julianne Moore

When Julianne Moore married her director husband, Bart Freundlich, back in 2003, she was 43 and he was 33. Still, the age difference hasn't deterred the power couple, who have now been together for a total of 27 years.

So what's the secret sauce? "The only thing that I can say is, I think that you both have to really want to be married,″ Moore said while on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2020. ″I do feel like I’ve seen situations where things aren’t working out for people, one of the members of the couple doesn’t want to be there.″

″I think if you’re both invested in it working out, and then you really have to have a good time,″ she added. ″My God, I think they really have to make you laugh. If they don’t make you laugh, it’s just deadly."

Salma Hayek & François Henri-Pinnault

Asked about how she met her love, Salma Hayek once said to Town & Country, "It’s such a romantic, amazing story, but it is mine. I don’t want to vulgarize it by making it into a story to make myself interesting.”

And she's been that fiercely protective of her union to the Groupe Artémis president ever since. The two supposedly met sometime in 2006, welcomed their daughter, Valentina Paloma Pinault, the following year, then tied the knot in Paris in 2009 when she was 43.

"I married the right guy,” she told reporters at Harper’s Bazaar’s 150 Most Fashionable Women celebration in 2017. “That is probably the most important thing. We support each other in everything we do. We want the other one to strive. Makes you happy when the other one strives. And you know what, we don’t have a very strong social life, because we really like to spend time together. So we do spend a lot of quality time together.”

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