Jamie Lee Curtis ‘Struggled With the Idea of Love’ Coming From a Family of 13 Divorces
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Jamie Lee Curtis admitted that she has “often struggled with the idea of love” after her immediate family went through 13 divorces.
She opened up about those feelings in an Instagram post about her late parents, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh.
Jamie Lee is happily married to her husband, Christopher Guest, and has been for 38 years.
Although Jamie Lee Curtis has been happily wed for over three decades, it wasn’t always easy for her to see marriage in a positive light. The resistance came from her immediate family’s long history of divorce, which she opened up about on Instagram.
The actress recently shared a black-and-white photo of her parents—late movie stars Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh—and proceeded to reflect on their relationship. “My sister sent me this. Once in a while when their images find me unexpectedly, I’m caught by not only their extreme beauty but their deep love and ambition,” Jamie Lee wrote.
“As the product of 13 divorces in my immediate family I have often struggled with the idea of love, what happens to it?” she continued. “There are only a couple reminders to me that I was born from love and not resentment, competition, jealousy, and rancor which are the cornerstones of any unpleasant divorce.”
Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh were married in 1951 and starred alongside each other in multiple films. After 11 years together, they divorced. Tony went on to marry a total of six times, per CBS News, and Leigh married once more, totaling four.
During their time together, however, they were one of Hollywood's favorite couples. “I also forget that they were famous and loved worldwide,” Jamie Lee concluded her post. “Happy hump day Janet and Tony. Thanks for love and life!”
As for Jamie Lee, the True Lies star married her husband, Christopher Guest, in 1984. Last December, they celebrated 38 years together, and she has admittedly learned a lot about love along the way. In a July 2021 interview with AARP, she called Guest her “one and only” and revealed that, for their 35th anniversary, she wrote a song for him that included the lyric: “I feel safe when I drive up and see that you are home.”
“That’s the long marriage,” she explained. “It’s the safety of knowing his car is in the garage, that I’m not alone, and that he’s here.” And while she admitted that she’s a realist when it comes to relationship longevity, she’s still a sucker for the sappy stuff—especially in the form of viral proposal videos.
“It just delights me,” Jamie Lee admitted. “That first moment of pledging yourselves to each other, that hope and thrill, is really the start of the marriage. There’s just something magical there, between the reality of it and the beautiful unknown of it. That’s marriage. And that’s life.”
In 2018, she shared with Good Housekeeping the mantra that keeps her secure in her marriage, despite all of the divisiveness she saw growing up. “Don’t leave,” she stated simply. She continued:
“There’s a recovery phrase that says, ‘Stay on the bus… the scenery will change.’ You think you’re having a bad week, but stay on the bus, because one of these days you’ll look out the window and it’ll be beautiful. I think it can apply to almost anything where you feel unhappy in that moment. I’m not a wild romantic. I’m a realist. I respect him. And I just don't leave.”
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