Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell are a rarity in Hollywood. With more than four decades of relationship under their belt, the “Private Benjamin” and “Silkwood” stars are among the industry’s most stable couples. Their bond is so seamless that it’s hard to notice there’s a nearly six-year age gap between them. While six years isn’t shocking by Hollywood’s standards, the age difference was considerable when the two met in the 1960s. But their age never got in the way of their relationship.

Neither did any of our society’s expectations. Even though they have been a couple for a lifetime and have a son together, Hawn and Russell never got married. Their lack of interest in it didn’t change as they grew older together. “I would have been long divorced if I’d been married,” Hawn said on “Loose Woman” in 2016. To them, a successful relationship is more than a piece of paper. “The marriage certificate wasn’t going to create anything that otherwise we wouldn’t have,” Russell told People in 2020.

They aren’t going to change their minds just because they’ve been together so long. “Forty years isn’t enough to finally say, ‘Well I guess…'” Russell added. Hawn and Russell’s relationship may seem strange to some, but no one can deny that it works. Together, they forged a strong family, with Hawn’s children, Oliver and Kate Hudson, calling Russell “Pa.” Oliver Hudson even moved back with Hawn and Russell for a while in 2022. Their relationship proves that age really is just a number.

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell’s paths first crossed in 1966 while filming the 1968 musical “The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band.” Math-savvy readers are probably trying to work out how that date fits into a 40-year timeline, but the actors didn’t start dating then because they knew their age difference was a problem. Hawn was born on November 21, 1945, while Russell was born on March 17, 1951, meaning she’s five and a half years his senior.

That doesn’t mean they didn’t feel a connection. “I was 21 and he was 16 and I thought he was adorable but he was much too young,” Hawn said on Radio 4’s “Desert Island Discs” in 2012 (via Daily Mail). Russell felt it, too. “I thought she was awfully attractive. You couldn’t miss her. She just had this energy about her,” he told Variety in 2023. With the timing being wrong, they went their separate ways. Russell went on to marry once and Hawn twice. But what’s meant to be is meant to be.

Hawn and Russell reunited on the set of “Swing Shift” in 1983. “I liked him and I remembered that I liked him very much when I first met him,” Hawn said. Russell admittedly used a questionable pickup line to charm Hawn. “Man, you’ve got a great figure,” he recalled saying on “Conan” in  2017, blaming it on being hungover. Luckily for him, it worked. “She said, ‘Why, thank you.'”