Fug bridal sacks aside, Jennifer Lawrence is not dreaming of walking down the aisle in a perfect Vera Wang wedding gown. That’s not where she is right now, and maybe she’ll never be there. This is sort of personal to me, mostly because I am that person. I’m missing The Bride Gene. Do I enjoy looking at wedding photos and judging your wedding gown? For sure. Do I love reading about what food was served at your wedding? Absolutely. Do I judge you for not serving a cake? Yes, I do. But I have never, ever had the desire to plan my wedding or wear the white dress or any of it. I’m just lacking that part of womanhood, I guess. And it’s nice to see a high-profile fellow traveler like J-Law.
Jennifer sat down with Diane Sawyer for a nice interview with Good Morning America/ABC News. Diane was utterly charmed by J-Law, because of course. Through the course of the interview, Jennifer referenced her “five years” with Nicholas Hoult and she sounded very bittersweet about it. Then she discussed how she kind of thinks she’s not into marriage.
Some assorted quotes:
The end of an era, being done with Nicholas Hoult & the Hunger Games: “These movies had been my life for so long and they had to come first in everything. I was also in a relationship with somebody for five years and that was my life. So my life was this person and these movies and we broke up around the same time that I wrapped those movies. Being 24 was this whole year of, ‘Who am I without these movies? Who am I without this man?'”
On the idea of marriage: “I don’t know if I ever will get married and I’m OK with that. I don’t feel that I need anything to complete me. I love meeting people, men, women, whatever, I love people coming into your life and bringing something. I don’t really plan on getting married. I might. I definitely want to be a mother. I don’t really imagine getting married anymore.”
Her wage gap essay: “My question to myself was why am I not asking for it? And I think I know I have always kind of carried a habit of submissiveness with the idea that it makes me more likeable. I felt like I had had to say something because we need to talk about it. On average women are paid 21 percent less than men… We can ask for the same exact thing that men do and we do face the reality that we do get judged more. It’s just something that is intrinsic, and I would love to see change.”
I wonder if her anti-marriage talk is just a phase, a reaction to the end of her relationship with Hoult, and then whatever went down with Chris Martin. Maybe it’s just me, but if I had to listen to Chris Martin sing about my “magic,” I would want to shut down the idea of “happily ever after” as well. I do wonder about Hoult though. It seemed like… they complemented each other so well. It seemed like a real love match. It seemed sweet AND hot. Maybe after five years with a guy like that, you need to take a few years to reassess and figure out what it is you really want. Anyway… I would watch The Diane & J-Law Show for a long time. Jennifer needs to stay with Diane Sawyer whenever she’s in NYC. They’re very cute together.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.
J’Law’s tribute to Elsa Lancaster as The Bride of Frankenstein is really starting to grow on me.
I kinda like it too? It’s sorta looks like a gothic horror movie night-gown
I bet she would be a great mom. The marriage stuff……who knows, at 25 it’s impossible to predict. Even though I was married, we went to a courthouse. I was more concerned with a house down payment, than a wedding, I don’t have that gene either.
It looks like a nicer version of the nighties Piper Laurie wore in “Carrie.”
Is she messing with her face? Something looks different to me.
Me too! Def nose I think? She is starting to look the same as every small, straight nosed blonde woman in Hollwood.
I also used to say I would probably never get married. That I would have a kick ass career and travel the world on my own being a boss. Then I went to college, met Mr. Ostone, married at 23. While I am not traveling on my own, we are traveling together and building a life together. I had a plan, but sometimes life seems to throw you a curve, that may happen to Jlaw too.
Yeah, I always assumed I’d be married with children, but do to medical issues, I am unable to have sex – which has killed all hopes for a relationship – and unable to have children. Life will bring what it may.
Go girl I’m truly sorry. I hope u find happiness and love in whatever form they may come.
But she doesn’t NEED marriage. Nobody does.
I planned to get marry and travel the world with the person who I loved. Life threw me a curve. Never married and not enough money to travel. Be grateful, please, for those of us who never experienced such joy. It is a privilege.
Someone needs to find her a nice British man, cause that seems to be her type.
Her chemistry with Michael Fassbender in X-Men is pretty hot…
only that he isnt nice.
He is Irish
Maybe she’ll meet Mr. Tom Hiddleston, fell in love, get together. She’ll fart at him endlessly and he’ll bless her adoringly.
I dont think Mr Eton und Mrs Reality Show are really on the same wave length
She is friends Aziz Ansari, a funny, brilliant, insightful and intelligent man. She obviously has the taste for more than reality shows. Although I do agree Mr Eton and her would be a total mismatch. Hes way too serious for her. Also i think he likes to be centre of attention which wouldn’t work if you date the most famous movie star in the world. Hoult seems more on the quiet and shy side.
“She’ll fart at him endlessly and he’ll bless her adoringly.” LOL
@sephana: No, she’s probably smarter. It would do him a world of good, though.
Leah–way too serious? You haven’t seen enough Dragonfly King videos.
My whole life I’ve felt like marriage was for other people, not for me…. I just could never imagine it, and I was cool with that. Then I had a short glimpse into the possibility that it could happen, but as that ended, I’m back on the “probably will never happen for me” train, with a slight twinge of sadness this time around.
it is not because you are not married that you failed your life
I don’t have the marriage gene either. One gloriously bad albeit short marriage in my past and two relationships that didn’t end in marriage. Nursing a broken heart right now. Bah! Not particularly bitter about my un married state but I do feel like I’m always defending myself and all the other “unmarrieds”. Nothing makes me crankier than when I hear someone say “what’s wrong with her/him, how come they can’t find a husband/wife?” Grrrrrr
Don’t you know about The Husband Store? Surely, it must exist because I know so many people who insist that all one has to do is to decide to “settle down” and it will all happen instantly. So, there must be a place we can go and buy a spouse when we decide to do this “settle down” thing. I just haven’t found it. I think it must be in Bolivia or Tahiti. Someplace I haven’t been.
Skyblue – I hear you. This thread is making me not looking forward to seeing certain family members during the holidays. I live in Chicago but am from the deep deep south where certain people in my family can’t help themselves, “You gotta man yet?” Every. Time. Like I havent reached adulthood or there’s something wrong with me because I’m not married. It may or may not happen and I seriously love what JLaw is saying here. Even though she is only 25, it resonates.
Yeah, that sucks. I’ve been married for five years, but I think it’s weird that people think something’s wrong with folks who haven’t been considering that serial killers, pedophiles and sociopaths are often married. Marriage does not mean that someone’s not messed up.
@Lilac, I’m sure if that were the case, the relatives would give you a gift certificate to The Husband Store. You know how they love getting involved for no reason 😉
Yes I got married the first time at 33 but my family tortured me for years…”Are you seeing someone special?” Gosh I hated that. And I ended up divorced a few years later so in retrospect I believe the social norms forced my hand in getting married. I’m remarried now but trust me, being single is way more fun. I love my husband but relationships are work and we’re in the midst of a rough patch and it’s very difficult.
“habit of submissiveness with the idea that it makes me more likeable” Nailed it. That’s hard for many people, but women especially.
I like everything she’s saying here, but wondering why anyone would ask a 25 year old single superstar about marriage at this point.
I too am missing the bride gene, if I ever get married, which I’m fine either way with, it would be small and not terribly expensive.
Yeah, I wondered why she was being asked marriage questions. She’s 25 and not even in a relationship — seemed completely bizarre.
Because for many who have bought into the marriage industrial complex, 25 is “the perfect age” to get married and if you aren’t married at 25, there is something wrong with you and you must be pestered about it constantly.
Lilacflowers: + buy an engagement ring worth three months’ salary! for whatever reasons De Beers the biggest diamond producers in the world came up with that. hmm… and people still tell you those things like they are facts. its like BMW told everyone “you need to spent at least 50.000$ on a car and everybody would see this a natural fact. Oh and Dr. Malboro said smoking cures cancer. so light one up!
It mentioned in the Vogue article that one of her best friends recently married and another was engaged. I feel like 25 /26 is still the first round of marriage for many people. I have 2 friends that married at that age and have remained married for years but I have just as many friends that married in their mid-30s.
I wonder if as a society, we’re outgrowing the idea of marriage as an institution. Or maybe just we women are.
I hope we all are. I really do.
you know, our ability to work has largely nullified the economic imperatives that forced us into marriage for, like, all of time.
Imagine that: within a century of joining the workforce, women decide they have no use for marriage anymore.
Marriage and monogamy are not compatible with feminism anyway and have historically always chained women. women are unhappier in marriage and get easier bored with the same partner sexually so why are we still doing it?
Exactly, Saphana. I wish more people would think like that.
I think we may be outgrowing marriage as mandatory, but I doubt it will end completely. I think there are some people, male or female, who just gravitate to marriage and monogamy. Then there are plenty of people who aren’t happy in marriage. I’m happy as long as people can make the choice for themselves.
Come on, I was a women’s studies major and I am very happily married. You can’t make sweeping generalizations like that.
Seriously? I happen to enjoy my marriage, thank you. I like having a shared history, a child we raise together, plans that span the next few decades, lots of things in common that we build on. The fact that most people still get married is because they want to. The fact that half of them do not divorce us because, again, they want to stay. Fine if it is not your jam, but don’t ma me assumptions about all women.
woah if it didnt hit the bullseye the reaction would be like that, eh? its statiscally speaking women are less happy in marriages and also get bored more easily with just one partner sexually.
i also dont believe “people get married because they want to” if we had NO social pressure to marry and no real benefits we could talk about what people “really” wanted. look through this thread, lots of people being pressured into a lifestyle that is failing women.
also people stay married for the same reasons and also because have you ever had a mortage together? have fun divorcing.
younger women luckily dont have the same amounts of pressure and are choosing to live their live differently, more and more childfree and nonmonogamous. Hook up culture specifically is a boon for women, not being held back by so called romance, time for working on your career and having access to multiple hotties.
Some people see the benefit of forming lifelong attachments to a partner and building a life together. Some people prefer to not to be in relationships, longterm or otherwise. Neither set of people are right or wrong, and there are no guarantees in life. I personally just don’t like speaking of anything in absolutes. I am a mostly happily married woman who sometimes thinks of the road not traveled. I’d bet most people think about the “greener” grass no matter what their life situation, but that doesn’t mean they are unhappy or they picked the wrong path. Different strokes for different folks, ya’ know?
I disagree that marriage is historically detrimental to women. One of the major reasons behind monogamous societies and marriage is establishing paternity so that men could be held responsible for providing for their children. That’s less vital now that we have birth control and women can work, but married women still have more legal and financial safety nets than single mothers.
Sonny –
Marriage came about more as a way of transferring and controlling property, not so much as a way of forcing men to be there for their children. If that was it’s true intent, it’s failed on numerous counts. I don’t think marriage is fundamentally detrimental to women by nature, but the current model is based on a system where women were considered part of the essential property of a marriage. The idea of creating a legal safety net around you and your life partner isn’t problematic, but the social model we’re working with could use some updating. I can see why it’s subject to so much critique.
+100
Maybe it’s because I’m 27 and haven’t been brainwashed yet, but I find marriage sexist and oppressively traditional.
Honestly, I think a lot of women aren’t willing to admit that they are more in love with the IDEA of getting married and planning a wedding than what the reality is.
Everybody has their own reasons I guess. But that’s just my opinion. When you are in love you don’t need to put a ring on it. The love is the real prize.
you are right whenever i hear a woman talk about marriage what they are talking about is the wedding day.
Powerful women like Jennifer being open about not wanting to marry is great for little girls growing up and seeing marriage for what it really is.
Except she’s not stating an indictment of the institution of marriage as much as realizing or trying to work on the idea that if it doesn’t happen for her then she can still be happy and live a fulfilling life without it.
People aren’t brainwashed if they decide to get married of their own volition. Some people will have great marriages young or old, some will crumble and be bitter at a young age or at an old age, some will crumble and move on, some marriages you’ll be envious of, and some will be that cautionary tale you hear at parties. It’s okay. That is life. People will survive.
I personally love being married but I agree with my husband when he says, “Marriage is becoming a minority position.” There are many, many kinds of relationships that exist today that don’t exist under the banner of “marriage.” Some people are asexual, some people are poly, some people stay single, some people want to see/hook up with multiple people casually, some people are bonded to a single partner but don’t want to cohabitate or get married, some people move in with their partner but don’t want to get married. Marriage is something that used to be a social dominant that may be transitioning into one of many options for how to structure one’s romantic/sexual/domestic life.
I personally can’t wait to get married and I’ve dreamed about it my entire life. And even though I’m only 23 I’m feeling a bit stressed about not being in a relationship. My mom got married at 23 (still married) so that might be why I’m freaking out but when I was younger I always pictured myself getting married young 🙁
My mum got married when she was 23 and I think that’s extremely young. While my parents have a happy marriage, they’d killed me if I got married that young too.
Her generation is probably one of the last to get married or commit to one life partner, most of her generation still grew up with that social conditioning. i guess it made sense as a form of contract to pass on kingdoms and stuff but thats not really what we do nowadays, do we?
Pretty sure both of Jen and Hoult being so young had a lot to do with them breaking up . Like i was reading some of his interviews after seeing Mad Max and he mentions that staying in Namibia for so long without cellphone reception and stuff was what had caused their break in 2012 . So yeah being so young and having to stay away so far from your partner must weigh in a lot. Maybe there were other complicacies . Maybe Nick really was a jelaous bastard.
Anyway i too do not want to get married . its good to have a celebrity crusader for this cause. Though she was saying very different things in the vogue interview . How far apart were these taken ?
just looked that Vogue thing about.
“I can’t wait to be married. I feel like if I find that one person who I want to spend the rest of my life with, who I want to be the father of my children, that I would absolutely not f–k it up. But I’m also not banking on that.”
at the end she does sound like she knows she would not be satisfied with only one partner for the rest of her life but “i can’t wait to be married” really is different from this. magazine interviewsd are conducted way before its published so she changed her mind in that time.
Interesting.
a 25 year old saying shes not into marriage is something to take with a grain of salt. nobody has any idea what is going to happen or change or whatever so…
also this “… I can’t wait to be married. I feel like if I find that one person who I want to spend the rest of my life with, who I want to be the father of my children, that I would absolutely not f–k it up. But I’m also not banking on that.”
^ this was quoted on this same site yesterday…quite a quick change…I feel like both are true and false, she’s just talking, talking, talking.
not necessarily quick, the Vogue interview is weeks if not months olds most likely.
I think this interview is quite old as well – I remember the outfit she’s wearing out and about in NY with Diana from a couple months ago on this site – what’s going on?!
“a 25 year old saying shes not into marriage is something to take with a grain of salt.” Yes. Especially from these celebs who try to come across as super independent and then get married a year later. Or when they do get engaged/married, they say something to the effect of ” I never thought I was a person who would get married, I never dreamed about the big wedding, but it just happened!” ScarJo comes to mind. She said that kind of crap when she married Ryan Reynolds and lo and behold she got married for a second time not long after it was over with him. Point is, dont say these assumptions out loud in your early 20s bc then it just makes you look like a flake when you do/say the opposite right after.
Exactly, saying it when you’re that young is what most women do but down deep its all talk.
i also have no interest in marriage. it’s such a personal choice depending also on circumstances, i think the healthiest approach is to treat it like a choice rather than something you have to do.
Society should give space to women with different point of views when it comes to marriage and motherhood. Some may want it, others not so much. It really boils down to personal choices, not so much what marriage means to women as a whole.
Yes!!! Completely agree. With both the above posters. Marriage and children should be a choice not a rite of passage. In my own family and friends circle there are a few people who felt that marriage and children was not for them and they get so much flak from others.
I will say this that if I hadn’t grown up in a traditional household and maybe given a more broader view of how my life could be, I don’t think I would have married or had children. Looking back once I expressed to my parents that I don’t want either and I remember them looking at me like I was saying I’m going to cut my arms off! I think I was about 17 at the time. Also religion plays a huge role, where you have to do both things to be a good follower.
I can relate to much of what you’re saying here. I was raised with the similar mindset and people in a church community (at least the one I was in) definitely look down on, pity, and harshly judge any person of a certain age (past college) who is not “settled down” aka engaged or married. It’s soooo small-minded. They would say things to me like “we need to find you someone” like it was an issue needing resolving. LOL ..I would get a lot of flak if I never got married and/or had any children. I recently expressed to my mom that I feel like if I do have kids, I just want one. She freaked out a little. Personal choices are personal choices.
Absolutely agree.
As long as you are doing what YOU want to do, and not what your family or society or whatever want you to do, then whatever makes you happy – and don’t judge those who choose differently.
Whatever she chooses to do, I hope she’s inmensely happy.
Take it from a very mouldy single oldie – there are a lot worse things than not being married. You can please yourself what you do for a start! Do what you want, when you want.
Confusing to read this after reading yesterday, in the Vogue interview, that she “can’t wait to be married.”
Jennifer Lawrence is very flitty. She’ll say something else in another interview.
I don’t really see how its contradict what she said in the vogue interview. she was talking about her best friends getting married and she said she can’t wait to find that someone and in this interview she acknowledge it might not happen and she is okay with it.
I love the white dress. Fear not J Law, a lot of young women your age can’t see marriage in the future, but it usually comes. I like her a whole lot better when she’s not mugging in a selfie or trying to be funny at all and any costs. Just do you and it will be fine.
I want desperately to like her, but she just rubs me the wrong way. I find her grating and annoying, much like a few other women everyone says are so cool: Lena Dunham, Amy Schumer, etc. She’s young, and she’ll do whatever she wants when the time comes. Not a big deal that a young woman or woman of any age doesn’t want to get married. But she does good work, and I wish her the best.
I used to say the same thing. I was never into weddings either. My first wedding I was clueless about flowers and refused to go to a bridal shop and bought a stunning off white gown at Saks. My second wedding I was in a white mini on the beach in Barbados with one witness. One cannot predict the future and I’m sure she’ll end up married at least once lol.
Um, say what? Because this, which she said just a few weeks ago to Vogue:
“I can’t wait to be married. I feel like if I find that one person who I want to spend the rest of my life with, who I want to be the father of my children, that I would absolutely not f–k it up. But I’m also not banking on that.”
Is the polar opposite of what she says to Diane. If you don’t know, just say you don’t know but jumping from pole to pole in a matter of weeks about something more substantial than your nail polish color makes you look like a flaky dimwit.
I don’t think they’re necessarily contradictory statements. Saying that you don’t need to be married doesn’t mean you can’t look forward to it if and when it happens. Here she’s talking more about the partner in marriage – finding that person with whom you can make it work. In both, she acknowledges that it might not happen.
yeah I read it exactly like you so I don’t get these comments about her contradicting herself.
Love this woman!.
Maybe she will find a great guy and settle down eventually or, maybe just find a great guy and not get married but either way, Lawrence has a good head on her shoulders.
Or maybe she’ll just settle down
I don’t know if I’d call it a stage as much as coming to terms with the kind of person you are. I knew by 25 that I would never NEED to be married, that I could be happy single my whole life. That doesn’t mean it might not happen or that the thought of it doesn’t make me happy – I just don’t feel the drive that some people have toward relationships and family.
That’s more what I got from her comment, and I think it’s good for young women to hear it from other women. Your life can be fulfilling in many ways, not just through marriage.
This so much. I’ve known for a longtime. Knew for sure when a guy I was dating told me I was stubborn because refused to follow his life plan. Marriage isn’t for some women, not because we are more together, we hate marriage, have no desire to do it but sometimes we just know we don’t need it….or may not be good at it. Whatever the case, some women do know themselves by 25, when they say their never marrying maybe it is that they know themselves and their limits.
I met my husband when I was 22, we married it 25 in a small ceremony at the court house. It was never about the “ideal wedding and wonderful life”, it was about spending my life with my best friend. It’s never perfect, as in any friendship, but we respect each other and grow together. Nobodies relationships are the same, and it’s unfair to lump everyone together in this “old-fashioned” ritual. I simply wanted to have a partner to enjoy life with, and have never regretted it.
Her math sucks, she wasn’t with Nick for 5 years … He seems to have moved on. He was dealing with Diana Agron for a while. I think it’s hard for men to date somebody as successful as Jlaw – Being apart so much is hard enough, but then having to deal with her being basically idolized must get old too.
Umm…I think Jennifer Lawrence knows how long she and her boyfriend were together a lot better than you do.
I hadn’t seen Jennifer be interviewed in a while and she does look a lot older, and maybe a little jaded?
I don’t get why she’s being asked about marriage now, since she’s only 25. You change your opinions daily about the idea of marriage in your 20s. Maybe some people are firmer than others about what they want, but Halle Berry said in her late 30s that she’d never get married again, and, uh, well, look what happened there.
In my experience, there is just something about the age of 25 that people magically start to want to know when you’re getting married and when you are going to have babies and all that jazz. Our society still places an enormous amount of pressure on women to want to be married. I am indifferent to the subject of marriage for myself, but I have some co-workers who are absolutely horrified by my attitude. I had one co-worker two weeks ago tell me that I wasn’t getting any younger and she was worried that I wasn’t going to find anyone. I just turned 27.
Yeah I had just turned 28 when my older sister got married. On her wedding day my aunt told me that it was already “too late” for me and acted as if I should just give up on life. She never bothered to ask me if marriage was even something I wanted. Well I am much older than 28 now and I’m not married. But to be honest, I’m way better off than anyone in my family that is married. They all seem miserable !
Finally, a voice of reason!
Jennifer looks like a Plantation owners blond prized child daughter at her debutante ball watev from 1811 …. like wtf on that look
as a mid to late 20s something…. you start thinking this when you have a relationship so substantial at that time in your life an then it goes wooopsss … and then you awkwardly date a older man who’s playing weird games and you’re honestly not that crazy about him as well…. shes in a mehhh moment in her dating life….. it will pass (or maybe not inserts Jen Aniston weird 30s)
right now Jen, have a stable of men and travel and create something a foundation, a talent group, write a script…. by a house in japan…. have fun girl….
Make millions, smoke weed legally,have all the sex I wish with the most attractive partners, get TONS of free swag at parties and go on vacation at anytime, anywhere I want with no children to tie me down. …oh dear god I have to stop RIGHT NOW! !!! I’M A MONSTER!
How about we get off the net, feed our cats, clean the house of the cat smell & mind our business?