As odd as it may sound, a number of public figures have shown that being in open relationships can sometimes be the right choice to maintain happiness with their partners/spouses.
- May 29, 2022
AceShowbiz - A healthy relationship or marriage is often characterized with loyalty between the lovers or spouses involved. However, in reality, a commitment to one person may sometimes lead to boredom or feeling suffocated, which in the end may result in affair.
While there are cases where infidelities lead to the end of romantic relationships, some couples choose an unconventional lifestyle to satisfy their needs without hurting their loved ones. With the consent of their partners/spouses, a number of celebrities have shown how being in open relationships can be a solution to maintain a happy relationship.
In case you haven't heard their stories, here are a number of celebrities who have opened up about practicing polygamy or polyamory.
1. Shailene Woodley
Shailene Woodley almost married Aaron Rodgers, but she likes to keep an open mind. In April 2020, she told the New York Times that she "has experienced both an open relationship and a deeply monogamous relationship" in her life. She argued, "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!"
However, there are rules for every game. "But there has to be a level of responsibility in any relationship dynamic, and that responsibility is simply honesty and communication and trust," she explained, before stressing, "Apart from that, it's really none of our business what people choose to do with their lives."
2. Kehlani
Kehlani first hinted that she's polyamorous on Twitter in 2018. The singer, who also identifies as queer, lesbian and pansexual, tweeted, "lil poly pansexual" at the time, but didn't clarify further. Later in 2020, when appearing on "The Breakfast Club", she admitted that she was in an open relationship with ex-boyfriend YG.
When asked about a picture of him "cheating" by kissing another woman outside of a club, the 27-year-old singer responded, "That wasn't a rule-breaking situation. I just don't feel like getting online and deeply explaining that that is not a situation that matters to me then I gotta deal with everybody coming at my mentality about an open relationship."
3. Nico Tortorella
Nico Tortorella and wife Bethany Meyers have labeled their relationship as "queer polyamorous." The "Younger" star made the revelation in November 2017, which got them uninvited from their respective families' Thanksgiving dinners. The 33-year-old actor further detailed their marriage in a 2018 essay for Them.
"Most think we planned this and one day decided we would be multiple-love kind of people. We didn't," the actor, who uses they/them pronouns, shared. "It's just the way our relationship developed over 12 years. We became polyamorous without ever really trying, and we let each other go so often; I guess we finally realized it's the reason we are impenetrable. It's hard to break something that bends."
4. Bella Thorne
At 24 years old, Bella Thorne has surely experienced a lot, both in career and relationship. The actress/model/adult film director has been in open relationship multiple times. She first confirmed she was dating rapper Mod Sun and YouTuber Tana Mongeau simultaneously in an October 2018 interview with the Los Angeles Times.
"I don't think anybody will really understand the bonds that I share with Mod or Tana," she said. "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. It is what it is." Then in a 2019 interview with Cosmopolitan, she declared, "I love loving two people at once."
5. Akon
Akon wishes to keep his family protected from the public eye, but he has been quite outspoken about his views on monogamy. Coming from a polygamous Senegalese family, where his father had four wives, the "Right Now (Na Na Na)" hitmaker told TMZ, "Women aren't built to breed like that or mate with more than one partner. Women aren't built that way, men are."
The three-time Grammy nominee further elaborated his stance on relationship on the Angie Martinez show in 2006. "I'm a polygamist," he stated. "I can afford to have as many wives as I can afford to have. All Africans believe in it. My dad has four wives."
6. Margaret Cho
Despite describing her marriage to artist Al Ridenour as "very conventional and conservative," Margaret Cho was actually in an open relationship with her husband. "I'm married to a man but I'm bisexual so I like both," the actress/comedian told the ladies of "The Real" in 2013. "We got together because ... we both have this [idea], 'I just don't want to have sex with the same person my whole life. That's just gross,' " she confessed.
The former pair, who got divorced in 2015, would even bring home the third person while their spouse was also there. "We have a really big house," she explained how it worked. "It's kind of like if we wanna have that, it's like, 'You can stay on your side or I'll stay on my side.' When I see her, I'll make her dinner. ... Oh yeah. I've definitely been in the house."
7. Kody Brown
Speaking of polygamy, one cannot forget Kody Brown. While he wasn't a public figure when he started this relationship style, he and his wives have been at the center of TLC's reality series "Sister Wives" that highlights how they navigate their lives in plural marriage.
It wasn't until recently that the fundamentalist Mormon began to question polygamy. The 53-year-old said earlier this year, "When you really start getting honest, you start looking up to the heavens and going, 'Geez, Father. You inspired me to do this. Why is it such a mess now?' It really has set me on my heels and had me questioning the lifestyle itself. It's a challenge."
8. Tom Ford
While he was together with Richard Buckley for over three decades until his husband's death in 2021, Tom Ford admitted that he doesn't believe monogamy is his natural state. "My own sex life is very monogamous and happy … just a happy married sex life!" he told New York magazine in 2004.
"I think that monogamy is artificial. I do not think it's something that comes naturally to us … The relationship I've been in for 18 years-I don't even want to get into this because he's going to read this and I'm going to be in so much s**t!"
9. Mo'Nique
Mo'Nique has been married to Sidney Hicks since 2006, but she'd like to be open to the possibility of her having sex with another man. She first revealed that they were in an open marriage in an ESSENCE interview.
"We have an agreement that we'll always be honest, and if sex happens with another person, that's not a deal breaker for us," she explained in a New York Times profiled published in 2007. "that's not something where we'll have to say, 'Oh God, we've got to go to divorce court because you cheated on me.' Because we don't cheat." More than a decade later, the actress admitted that it was her idea to have an open marriage.
10. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith never used the word polyamory or open marriage to describe their relationship, but they have expressed unconventional practices in their marriage. In a 2021 interview with GQ, the "King Richard" star shared, "Jada never believed in conventional marriage... Jada had family members that had an unconventional relationship. So she grew up in a way that was very different than how I grew up."
"There were significant endless discussions about, what is relational perfection? What is the perfect way to interact as a couple?" the 53-year-old actor divulged. While they chose monogamy "for the large part of [their] relationship," both of them have admitted to having extramarital relationships and believing in the freedom to pursue them.
11. Nick Cannon
Nick Cannon is another celebrity who has been open about leading a polyamory lifestyle and how he doesn't believe in monogamy. The multi-hypenate star, who has seven children with four different women, said on "The Breakfast Club" radio show in 2021 that marriage is "a Eurocentric concept."
"That's a Eurocentric concept when you think about the ideas of you're supposed to have this one person for the rest of your life," he said. "And really that's just to classify property when you think about it." He added, "I've never really subscribed to that mentality."
12. Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton has been happily married to Carl Dean for over five decades and keeping it "open" is one of the keys that makes their relationship work. In her 2017 book "Dolly on Dolly, Interviews and Encounters with Dolly Parton", the country music legend explained that despite her weakness in men, their open relationship never turns sexual.
"Short, fat, bald or skinny - I've had crushes on some very unusual men but Carl knows I'll always come home and I'm not having sex with these people - I'm just flirting and having fun," the 76-year-old stressed. "He's not jealous and I'm not jealous of him. He knows I flirt. He flirts too. Yes, it's an open relationship, but not sexually and I would kill him if I thought he was doing that."
