Sarah Paulson, 51, explains why she won’t marry longterm partner Holland Taylor, 83 - The Independent
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.
Sarah Paulson has admitted that the idea of marrying her longterm partner Holland Taylor gives her the “heebie-jeebies”.
The American Horror Story star, 51, has been with 83-year-old actor Taylor for almost 12 years. While the couple are very much in love, the American Horror Story star isn't looking to tie the knot, she revealed.
“I'm happy that I haven't been married. Because I feel that I’ve maintained some sense of myself in a way,” she said during an appearance on Chelea Handler’s Dear Chelsea podcast.
“For marriage to me somehow, it’s like... the bond, the connectivity I have with Holland, it feels, we talk about it all the time, I feel married to her. But I don’t have, or have never had, the need to, like, have it be something written in stone somehow.”
Paulson, who previously dated cherry Jones from 2004 to 2009, added that she wants to maintain a sense of “freedom”, but in a particular way.
“The stoneness of it makes me want to, like, it gives me the heebie-jeebies. I want to feel this kind of freedom,” she said.
“That’s not about being away from her or being with another person. It’s just about maintaining some sense of my own independence, and I think Holland feels that way too. We just have never, ever, ever felt the need to... I don’t know.”
Paulson and Taylor will celebrate 12 years together in January. They met in 2005, but didn’t start dating until a decade later.
Paulson pointed out that despite their long lasting commitment, neither of them want to be called “wife”.
She said: “We’re not married, first of all, but somehow, it’s, like, the thought of that is just not... I don’t like it... belonging to someone.”
In the same interview, she said she and Taylor were also on the same page when it came to children: “I like my life. I’m happy that I haven’t had children,” she said.
“I know that I don’t have the constitution to raise a creature, a person, a being, and then be like, ‘Oh, he’ll have a wonderful day outside and I hope it’s great.’ I can just see myself following them.”
Her comments come a few weeks after Taylor opened up on why they still have separate homes after over a decade together.
Asked if it's true they don't live together, she told The Drew Barrymore Show: “Well we do as much time as we possibly can, because work takes us apart constantly.
“But I have an apartment here [in New York City], and [Paulson] stays here in my apartment when she’s here.”
She clarified that if they're in NYC at the same time, they stay at her apartment “together”.
They each have their own separate home in Los Angeles, but Paulson has been living at Taylor’s house while she waits to move into a new property.
The Two And A Half Man star explained: “It’s been almost a year since she’s been staying in my house in LA, too. So we’re together as much as geography and our jobs let us be.”