Salma Hayek is a happily married woman but it took a long road to get there.
The actress married French businessman François-Henri Pinault in 2009 on Valentine’s Day. Ahead of their anniversary, Hayek is thinking back to the “intervention” that led to their union.
“I didn’t even know I was getting married that day,” she recalled to Glamour, via People. “It was like an intervention. I don’t think I ever told this story. No, they just took me to the court. My parents, my brother, they were all ganging up on me. I had a phobia of the marriage thing.”
The two had been dating since 2006 and even welcomed a daughter together in 2007.
Still, she had to be “dragged” to the courthouse by her family to go through the ceremony.
“I was nervous,” continued the “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” actress. “And then, after, there was a lunch at his parents’ house. My mother-in-law, who’s the most tasteful person when it comes to entertaining, had already been doing the lunch. I had no choice.”
Hayek made sure to clarify the wedding wasn’t made under duress, but rather that she was dragging her feet about it.
“It was because I had said yes to the marriage, but I just wouldn’t actually show up on the day or do it,” she explained. “And then afterward I said, ‘Oh, it’s okay. I don’t feel any different.’ And then a little bit later I said, ‘Okay, this is kind of exciting.’ And he’s like, ‘Can we have a party now?’”
A few months later they held a grand wedding in Italy with famous friends like Penelope Cruz, Edward Norton, Woody Harrelson, Ashley Judd, Charlize Theron, Bono, Gael Garcéa Bernal, David Blaine, Anna Wintour, and former French President Jacques Chirac in attendance.
14 years later, the actress is happy with how “boring” her married life is now.
“Boredom is underestimated,” she said. “I didn’t understand this for a long time. Also, it helps that we met each other later in our lives. It’s okay just to do nothing and be together; sometimes sharing a space and doing your own thing in silence, with connectivity and thoughtfulness—’Can I bring you a cup of tea?’—is enough. It’s little simple things.”
In fact, her supportive husband had no qualms about her getting close with the cast of male strippers on her latest film.
“My husband is not a jealous man,” she praised. “I used to call him all the time [from set] and say, ‘Oh my God, I feel so bad,’ because I had this predisposition about how the guys, the strippers were going to be. But they’re not. They’re lovely. They’re such great guys. And [my husband] goes, ‘Oh God, you’re becoming best friends with the strippers, aren’t you?’ And I said, ‘Yes!’ ”