Millicent Cooke
Holland Taylor has spoken out about the secret to her age-gap relationship with Sarah Paulson.
Taylor, 80, is an actress famous for her work in hit films and TV shows such as George of the Jungle, The Truman Show, Legally Blonde, Two and a Half Men, and The Morning Show.
While Paulson, 48, is known for her work on American Horror Story, The People v. O. J. Simpson, Ocean’s 8 and Netflix’s Bird Box.
The celebrity couple, who began dating in 2015, initially raised eyebrows after revealing their 32-year age-gap relationship.
However, their relationship has remained strong and the pair have been extremely vocal about their love for each other over the past eight years.
“I’m the luckiest person in the world. I can’t talk about my life today and not mention this wonderful love,” Taylor told Sandra Bernhard on her SiriusXM show.
While Paulson gushed that her girlfriend was ‘the most exquisitely beautiful woman’ she had ever seen in an interview with The New York Times.
“If anyone wants to spend any time thinking I’m strange for loving the most spectacular person on the planet, then that’s their problem,” Paulson told Modern Luxury. “I’m doing just fine.”
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So what’s the secret to their successful age-gap relationship? Taylor explains that it’s their ability to let each other be.
“We each follow our own path so we’re not exactly the same,” Holland told Page Six.
“We do some things separately so everyone gets to be true to what they believe.
“She’s much more social, and I like a little bit of alone time, so I have that. She spends some time with friends and not with me, so it’s a good balance.”
Despite their close relationship, many have questioned whether two people with three decades between them should really be together.
Paulson previously admitted that she was sceptical about bringing her relationship into the spotlight after people warned her that it might negatively affect her career.
“It occurred to me, ‘Should I not?’ And then I thought, ‘Why would I not?’” she recalled to The Edit in 2017.
“The fact I’m having this thought is wrong. But I had a moment of societal concern; wondering if, maybe, people who didn’t know that about me would be like, ‘Wait, what?’.
“But then, you know, I did it anyway.”
Paulson also addressed the backlash to her relationship with Taylor in an interview with The Guardian.
She said that she can receive ‘horrifying’ and ‘cruel’ messages about it.
Paulson told the publication: “I’m all for the fandom of it and the excitement around it and the interest in it.
“What I don’t love, which is sort of a consequence of it being such public knowledge, is that there is a discussion about it at all.
“Believe me, there have been plenty of young people on the internet who have tweeted horrifying things to me about it, and who don’t support it and who are so cruel. But one I try to not let into my brain too often.”
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Hitting back at the critics, Paulson says that she doesn’t care what people have to say about them.
“I don’t remember people going nuts about Michael Douglas and Catherine-Zeta Jones, in terms of their age difference,” she said of the couple’s 25-year age-gap in an interview with The Guardian.
Interestingly, Paulson and Taylor’s secret to a successful relationship is backed up by experts – and Taylor isn’t the only one recommending partners spend time apart to maintain a sense of self.
Making time for yourself and giving your partner personal space is essential to a happy and healthy relationship.
So remember to keep up your hobbies and interests and hold on to the things that matter to you.
Don’t expect one person to be your ‘everything’. Your marriage or partnership should be your primary relationship, but not your only one.
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