Mr. Feeny! ‘BMW’ Alum William Daniels’ Wife Details Previously Open Marriage

Living life to the fullest! There’s no right way to have a happy relationship, and these non-monogamous celebrities know that better than anyone.

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have long been open about the ins and outs of their marriage, which includes non-monogamy. (Well + Good defines a non-monogamous relationship as “a relationship structure wherein anyone involved may have multiple consensual romantic, sexual, or intimate relationships happening at once, and all parties involved are aware of these factors.”)

Though the couple, who married in 1997, were exclusive for the majority of their relationship, the King Richard star told GQ in November 2020 that they have both explored romantic and/or sexual experiences with others.

“Jada never believed in conventional marriage … Jada had family members that had an unconventional relationship,” the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum explained at the time.

“We have given each other trust and freedom, with the belief that everybody has to find their own way. And marriage for us can’t be a prison,” he continued. “The freedoms that we’ve given one another and the unconditional support, to me, is the highest definition of love.”

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Pinkett Smith famously recalled her “entanglement” with R&B singer August Alsina in a July 2020 episode of her Facebook Watch series, Red Table Talk — though she revealed she and Smith were estranged at the time.

Shailene Woodley, another A-lister who has been open about their sexual exploration, told the The New York Times in 2020 that she’s “experienced both an open relationship and a deeply monogamous relationship.”

The Big Little Lies star — who split from ex-fiancé Aaron Rodgers in February 2022, one year after Us Weekly confirmed their relationship — told The Times, “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!”

Fellow actress Bella Thorne is someone who has been in a “throuple,” as she once called her previous relationship with Mod Sun and Tana Mongeau, which began in October 2018 and ended in early 2019.

“I don’t think anybody will really understand the bonds that I share with Mod or Tana,” the former Disney Channel star told Gay Times for the outlet’s February 2019 issue.

Keep scrolling to see everything the Smiths, Woodley, Thorne and more non-monogamous stars have said about their decisions to explore multiple types of relationships:

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William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett

Bartlett opened up about the “painful” start to her and the Boy Meets World alum’s marriage — which was initially non-monogamous when they wed in 1951. 

“I guess it was a little bit of an open marriage at first, but that was very painful,” Bartlett told Fox News Digital in January 2023. “That didn’t work well. And it was a time when people were doing that. It was at a time in New York when there was a lot of sex and a lot of people doing all kinds of things, you know – very free.

She added, “But I don’t know if there was a lack of commitment a little bit, and that’s not good,” she continued. “So there was a lot of pain connected with any transgression, with any extramarital thing.”

In her memoir, St. Elsewhere, the Parks and Recreation alum revealed that neither she nor Daniels felt guilty” about their extramarital affairs because they “never felt tied to fidelity.” 

However, after having “an affair that last a few months” in 1959 and witnessing her husband’s affair with a producer in the earlier 1970s, she was left “devastated” and  “could no longer tolerate any kind of open marriage.”

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Shirley MacLaine and Steve Parker

MacLaine married the late producer in 1954 and they divorced in 1982, but the Apartment actress revealed in 2016 how their partnership lasted for 28 years due to its open status. 

“I guess you would say ‘practiced an open marriage’ in 1954, which was another lifetime,” the Virginia native told People. “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.”

She added: “I think that’s the basis for a long-lasting marriage if you really want to do such a thing. 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.”

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Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith

The couple have often discussed the details of their two-decades-plus marriage — including the fact that they have been in an open relationship, which they initially decided on after they found themselves “both miserable and clearly something had to change,” the Pursuit of Happyness star told GQ in 2020.

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Willow Smith

Perhaps following in her parents’ footsteps, the “Whip My Hair” singer revealed on an April 2021 episode of Red Table Talk, which she hosts with Jada and her grandmother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, that she was polyamorous.

“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,” she explained.

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Bella Thorne

In February 2019, the DUFF star discussed her relationship with then-partners Sun and Mongeau in an interview with Gay Times. “Yeah, we joke around about poly, but we aren’t in the sense that we don’t put a word, a box or label too many things,” she said at the time. “It is what it is.”

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Shailene Woodley

Prior to her relationship with Rodgers, the Descendants actress questioned the idea of monogamy in a 2020 interview with the New York Times.

“We’re societally conditioned to assume that one person can be our end-all, be-all,” she told the publication at the time. “The idea of being with someone … is it only because you’ve fallen in love with that person, or because there’s a newness to understanding yourself because of what that person can offer you?”

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Frankie Grande

While Ariana’s older brother is now married to Hale Leon, he used to be in a relationship with two married men.

“These are my boyfriends,” he told Us Weekly in November 2018 of his relationship with Daniel Sinasohn and Mike Pophis. “[We’ve been dating for] almost three months, but in the gay world, it’s like five years.”

The trio later called it quits in January 2019.

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Nico Tortorella

The Younger alum has been in a relationship with his wife, Bethany C. Meyers, for more than 15 years — and they’ve both had other relationships during that time.

Speaking on the misconceptions they often face as two non-monogamous partners, Tortorella told U.K.’s Attitude in 2020 that while people think the couple are “out here f—king all the time and that we have all these partners,” that is not the case.

While the Walking Dead alum explained that they and their wife had other partners at the time, in 2021, they revealed that the two were monogamous for the first time in 15 years.

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Mo’Nique

The actress and her husband, Sidney Hicks, are so candid about their open marriage that in 2016, they even started a podcast about it — “Mo’Nique and Sidney’s Open Relationship.”

Mo’Nique revealed to The New York Times in 2016 that their open marriage began when the star told her partner that she “wanted to continue to see the gentlemen that I was seeing, and I felt comfortable telling my best friend,” noting that Hicks was OK with the arrangement as long as he could also be in other relationships.

“I’m grateful he taught me I had to play fair,” she added.