The Oscar-winning Hollywood star Billy Bob Thornton is speaking out this week to reveal what he thinks is the secret to marriage success after 23 years with his wife Connie Angland.
Thornton’s Secret To Marriage Success
Thornton, 69, had been married five previous times before he met Angland. While some may think that this makes Thornton one of the last people who should be giving marriage advice, he believes that he’s learned from his mistakes to build a successful marriage with Angland.
Thornton and Angland have been together for 23 years, and they’ve been married for over a decade. In a new interview, Thornton is opening up about the secret behind this marriage standing the test of time.
“Connie and I have been together for 23 years, been married for 12, and our daughter is a great bond for us,” Thornton told Fox News. “Our daughter Bella, she’s 20 now and going to Cal Poly up in the Central Coast.”
“So, I think that bond will always keep you happy together,” Thornton continued. “But, also, you have to be friends, and she and I’ve always been friends. I mean the whole romantic part of it has to be there, but at the base of it has to be a friendship, and we are friends.”
Thornton’s Previous Marriages
This is Thornton’s sixth marriage. He was first married to Melissa Lee Gatlin in 1978, welcoming daughter Amanda Brumfield with her before they divorced in 1980. Thornton was then married to actress Toni Lawrence from 1986 until 1988.
Thornton’s third marriage was to the actress Cynda Williams, who he met on the set of the movie One False Move. Like his previous marriages, this one also lasted just two years, from 1990 until they divorced in 1992.
Thornton then married the former Playboy model Pietra Dawn Cherniak in 1993. They welcomed sons William, 31, and Harry, 30, before they divorced in 1997.
Thornton went on to secretly marry the Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie in 2000. At the time, Thornton was dating the actress Laura Dern. However, he and Jolie fell in love on the set of their 1999 film Pushing Tin, and they decided to secretly wed.
Thornton and Jolie, who have a 20 year age difference, ultimately divorced in 2003. In a 2016 interview, Thornton addressed this split by saying that he and Jolie “just had different lifestyles.”
“Hers is a global lifestyle and mine is an agoraphobic lifestyle,” Thornton explained. “So, that’s really … the only reason we’re probably still not together, you know, ‘cause [it was] just a different path and life we wanted to take.”
Thornton and Jolie have remained on good terms despite their split. In fact, in a 2008 interview, Jolie said that she was “proud to have been his wife for a time.”
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Thornton Finally Gets It Right
Finally, Thornton began dating Angland soon after his 2003 divorce. They met when she was working as a puppeteer and makeup and special effects on the set of his movie Bad Santa. They welcomed their daughter Bella in September of 2004. Though he was happy with Angland from the start, Thornton was reluctant to marry again after so many divorces.
“I told Connie I didn’t want to put her through that,” Thornton said in 2008. “We do fine. We’ve been together for four years now. We have a child together. If we get married, then the press will start calling her ‘No. 6.’”
Thornton and Angland ultimately decided to secretly marry in 2014 for the sake of their daughter. They went public with their marriage a year later.
“We did for her, really,” he said of Bella afterwards. “Because, after a while, it was like, ‘Why aren’t my mommy and daddy married after 12 years?'”
“The reason I didn’t want to is my marriages were always very short, and I don’t like to try to fix things that aren’t broken,” Thornton concluded. “I said, ‘Look, I got a pretty bad record, and things are going fine.'”
This time, it seems that Thornton has finally gotten it right, as he’s been with Angland for decades. In the end, his story serves as a reminder that regardless of how many times you fail in the romance department, it’s never too late to find love!
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