Kevin Bacon, 62, fell in love with Kyra Sedgwick, 55, at first sight, but she was initially put off by him.
Marriage can be a fun and enjoyable journey if we find the right partner. Sure, it has its ups and downs, but which relationship doesn't? While Hollywood is notorious for failed marriages, one Hollywood couple has beaten the odds and stayed together for more than three decades. Kevin Bacon, 62, and Kyra Sedgwick, 55, met way back in 1987 when they filmed Lemon Sky together. They have been together ever since and are parents to two kids, Travis and Sosie.
Bacon was 29 and Sedgwick was 22 when they met. The couple was lucky to find lasting love early in life. He proposed the same year they met. "I proposed to my wife on Christmas Eve and I put the ring in the toe of the stocking,” Bacon recalled to PopEater, as per UsWeekly. "Shockingly, she said yes!" It was a whirlwind romance that lasted, in their case. They got married in September 1988.
It wasn't long until they welcomed their first child. Just a year after getting married, their son Travis was born. "The minute I had a child I was like, ‘God, I want to make sure there’s a good place here for him,’” Sedgwick told Glamour in 2019. "[Kevin and I] are both people who are spurred into action, and we like to be part of giving back. It's our responsibility."
Soon after becoming parents, the couple reunited on screen for the 1991 movie Pyrates, as per Us Weekly. They had their second child, daughter Sosie, a year later, and Sedgwick chose to slow down her career.
Bacon is not one to shy away from giving credit where it is due. "She’s made a lot more sacrifices than I’ve made. Kyra felt really strongly that, when she started to have children, she needed to be there for them. In many cases, because of the kids, she would make decisions careerwise that weren’t the best for her career. We kept staying in New York because we wanted to raise them in New York, but there was more work in Los Angeles," he told Glamour.
Through the years, they worked together on different projects including a film directed by Bacon. Sedgwick starred in it and their kids were also given parts in it. They have taken many risks together, including their activism. And yet, they continue to learn new things about each other.
“We've been married for so long and there are no secrets. But I never in a million years thought there would be sides to Kevin that I'm still learning," Sedgwick told Redbook in 2008. "[Our relationship] is like a treasure; there are layers and layers of it. I'm constantly amazed that we are still surprised and interested in each other."
They also faced hurdles together. One of the toughest things they dealt with as partners happened to them. In 2008, they realized that they had lost millions to con artist Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. They were shocked but they never blamed each other. Instead, they focussed on what really matters, their family.
"We kind of said though, ‘Well, our families are OK, the kids are healthy, and we’re healthy; we’ll get back to work.’ What else are you going to do? There are a lot of people who had it a lot worse than we did," he said, as per The Blast.
After more than 30 years together, they have learned to trust each other deeply. "I think the trust gets deeper and the dependency gets deeper, which is scary. I think, because my father and mother split up when I was very young, there was a part of me at the beginning of our marriage that thought, ‘I’m cool alone. I love him, but I'm strong enough to handle life without him.’ But now he is the person I count on to live and walk through life with. It's a dependency that is there and large and real and profound," Sedgwick added.
Meanwhile, Bacon's attraction towards her, in the beginning, was because she seemed like a challenge. "I found her very beautiful and sexy and aloof and I was just immediately in love with her and she was immediately put off by me," he said, according to Us Weekly. It's a great thing he wasn't put off by it!
References:
https://www.glamour.com/story/kyra-sedgwick-kevin-bacon-relationship-advice
https://www.redbookmag.com/life/friends-family/interviews/a3789/kyra-sedgwick-interview/
https://theblast.com/113508/a-look-inside-the-family-life-of-kevin-bacon-and-kyra-sedgwick
