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Diane von Fürstenberg and Barry Diller: A Love Story 50 Years in the Making
Diane von Fürstenberg’s love story with Barry Diller, which spans over several decades, is still developing and getting more and more tender with each passing day.
The two, who married in 2001, didn’t actually meet for the first time until many years ago — a time that the legendary fashion designer recently commemorated through an emotional tribute on social media.
“Today is the 50th anniversary of the BIG BANG!!! The day Barry and I fell in love!” she posted on Instagram on Oct. 25. “He came with love and never left!”
At 78, von Fürstenberg is still able to see love in her fantastic story with the businessman and thus, she continues to pay tribute to them as a couple who has been together through thick and thin.
A Celebration of “Unconditional Love”
On her Instagram post Diane von Fürstenberg kept on writing: “The first day of a long, colorful, happy journey… UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.” She also added three red heart emojis and a loving message: “Thank you BD.”
Just in time for the New Year, in his memoir Who Knew? Barry Diller, 83, his husband, was thinking about their strong connection. The media mogul in the book shared a rarely seen picture of his relationship with the fashion icon – which included him addressing the rumors about their marriage while also publicly coming out as gay.
“For a very long time I have been reading the same stories about Diane and me: about us being best friends rather than lovers,” Diller wrote. “We weren’t just friends. We aren’t just friends. To make it clear, it was a passionate love affair that lasted for years.”
A Love Beyond Labels
In the documentary “Who Knew,” Barry Diller recounted, “I also liked guys, but that was not a conflict with my love for Diane. I can’t explain it either to myself or to the world. It didn’t happen for us both with cause or control. Somehow, in a cosmic way, we were meant for each other.”
The news of Diller’s announcement made big news, but it was a secret that no shock was to the closest of the couple. Diane von Fürstenberg, after all, pointing out that his coming out didn’t change the structure of their marriage, declared that their private life — and their connection — is still as strong as ever.
Diane von Fürstenberg on Love Without Boundaries
“What’s really different?” Diane von Fürstenberg told Variety in an interview published October 16. “I can’t figure it out. Still, it doesn’t affect anything. Sorry, I think it’s a stupid question.”
The fashion icon also reminisced about her marriage with Prince Egon von Fürstenberg who after their divorce, revealed that he was bisexual. In line with her character of being broad-minded, Diane indicated that she has never been the type to be defined by labels in her relationships.
“I married two gay men, alright?” she told the outlet. “I don’t know why, but to me, they’re not gay, so it doesn’t make any difference.”
Additional famous couples share their secrets to a durable marriage
Mariska Hargitay and Peter Hermann: Laughter, grace and repair after fights
In their 2020 book What Makes a Marriage Last, Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue, quoted Peter Hermann as saying that he never imagined that his married life would be filled with so much laughter — “that is such a fundamental thing of who you are, this insistence on joy.” He also said that the thing that keeps their more than 20 years of marriage going is the fact that he knows his wife loves him “in spite of who I am,” referring to that “the definition of grace” as.
For the pair, the decision to be happy is what matters most. After a heated argument, “one of us will test the waters with a joke – about the very thing we were fighting about,” Hermann said, explaining how humor helps them move slowly towards each other and reconcile.
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Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Marriage: Date Nights, No TV, and Love ‘Like a Hornet’
Chip and Joanna Gaines state that they take the advice of premarital counseling to heart in order to keep their marriage alive. With five children, they still make Tuesday date nights a must-have and have consciously decided not to have a TV at home, thus choosing other ways to connect.
If Chip is allowed to give only one piece of advice, that would be to love the person “like a hornet.” He says that after twenty years he still acts as if it were the first time he was asked out on a second date. “I’m not saying she’d never cheat on me,” he explained, “but it’s not going to be because I never told her I loved her or I didn’t send her flowers or I forgot our anniversary.”
Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon: Keep the Fights Clean, the Sex Dirty, and Never Let Arguments Linger
On the one hand, Kevin Bacon quipped that his very first piece of advice would be not to follow celebrity advice and on the other hand, he repeated their motto: “Keep the fights clean and the sex dirty.” Kyra Sedgwick states that they do not allow arguments to simmer—when they do have a fight, both partners look for a solution instead of digging in. “We are, for the most part, struggling to get back to everything being okay, because it is very unpleasant to fight,” she confided to Thomas and Donahue, emphasizing that there is no Plan B and both of them want to make it work.
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Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan: 37 Years of Mature Fighting—Respecting Each Other’s Space Instead of Digging Up Old Wounds
During the 37 years of his marriage, Michael J. Fox points out that he and Tracy Pollan have figured out how to fight fair. “Tracy and I don’t pick scabs,” he said, referring to the fact they do not exploit each other’s weaknesses. He confesses that he is sometimes inclined to instantly correct a mistake, but he instead tries to give her some space. Pollan, however, decides to give him the benefit of the doubt when a remark hurts: she sees that he is a good person and thus, she often forgives what was most probably an unintentional thing.
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Christopher Guest Continues to Be Jamie Lee Curtis’ Favorite Comedian After 40 Years
In an interview on Today show in December 2024, Jamie Lee Curtis mentioned that her husband, Christopher Guest, “still makes me laugh more than any human being,” the pair being about to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. She jokingly added that she was definitely wrong that there isn’t “something” about her that he likes—although she has no idea what it is.
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Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka: as relationships change — falling in love again and again
“One of the things, I think, that has kept us together all these years is the fact that we both see relationships as something quite indefinable,” said Neil Patrick Harris. In these 21 years—through changes in their careers, parenting of twins Gideon and Harper, and difficult times—he recounted that “marriage doesn’t stay the same.”
“You have sex with the same person over and over, it gets redundant, so you try different things. Then one day you don’t like each other, and suddenly you’re not attracted to each other, so you have to figure out how to be reattracted to them—but in a different way because you’re getting older,” he explained further.
After a while, attraction changes: first to the soul, and later again to the body. “Everything keeps changing,” Harris said. “So, strangely enough, we keep falling in love with each other in different ways, over and over.”
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Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone: Laughter as a longevity — adding months and avoiding late-night fights
Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone are sure that humor has been the lifeline not only of their lives but also their marriage. Once they have such a big laugh, that makes them dizzy, they in a joking manner assign it a length of time added to their lives (“That was like two months—I just got two more months to live!” McCarthy says), and she is keeping a continuous record.
Besides, they limit the number of fights. Falcone tried to work through the issues late at night but found it ineffective—next morning he would often forget the problem. When people are tired (or have had a drink), deciding on an argument seldom results in solutions, hence they prohibit fights at night and do not wait for breakthroughs at 10 p.m.
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Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen: Choosing to be a cheerleader—supporting stepchildren, not disciplining them
Before they met in 1995, each of them had been married once, and they have both been dealing with the blending of families as each of them became a step-parent to two children. Rekindling Mary’s memory, she claimed that being a step-parent there is no manual, so she figured it out by herself and said that the kids already “have a mom – and it’s not me. So what did they need from me?” Her response was: be a cheerleader, not the disciplinarian—offer friendship, support and presence instead of setting boundaries or teaching right from wrong.
Ted Danson concurred, stating that the main thing is to “absolutely, genuinely be there”—to hang out, not judge or discipline, and to be there as a consistent, supportive presence.
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Elton John and David Furnish: Handwritten notes and a bond forged at a chance 1993 dinner
When same‑sex civil partnerships were allowed in the UK, Elton John and David Furnish registered their partnership on Dec. 21, 2005, and got married officially on the same date nine years later. However, the couple considers their real anniversary from their unexpected meeting at a dinner during a weekend at Elton’s flat in Windsor in 1993.
Every Saturday, no matter where they are, they write each other a handwritten note—approximately 1,352 letters have they counted so far. “There is something very spiritual and genuine about writing by hand,” says Furnish, who sees the cards as a time to look back at the past week and to the week to come. Elton, in his turn, says that communication is the key: it is “one of the keys, I think, to the success of a relationship lasting.”
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Dr. Mehmet Oz and Lisa Oz: After 40 years, making marriage the priority
Dr. Mehmet Oz and Lisa Oz have made their marriage of forty years a conscious priority. Lisa says she even dreamed of the man she would marry months before meeting him, and both agree that putting their marriage first constantly requires work.
“Marriage is a priority for both of us. And that means that we do it and refocus when we have lost sight of the ball,” Lisa said. If Dr. Oz were giving only one piece of advice, he would say their love should be put above everything else: “I would do anything for her. Climb any mountain, take any bullet — in the chest, too, by the way. I might do things that make her really angry at me, but I would never let anything block me from delivering my love to her.”
He also said that making marriage the most important thing for long-term happiness means you “will never let anyone touch it.”
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Al Roker and Deborah Roberts: How their marriage was transformed by a single phone call
ABC News reporter Deborah Roberts confesses that she used to be irritated by “check-in” calls, whereas the great weatherman Al Roker was definitely a phone person. After years of disagreement about his frequent calls, a friend advised her to think that hearing her voice might be what makes her husband happy and tells him that “everything is fine in the world.” Roberts certainly did that and she started not only answering but also greeting the caller more warmly — “Honey, loads of things to do here, but what about you? Good. I’m glad you called. I have to go now. See you later. Love you.” According to her, this little change “makes all the difference in the world” and it doesn’t take more than two minutes. They became the couple to mark their 29th wedding anniversary in September 2024.
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Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos: Walking away, taking a breath — and continuing
The core of their marriage, which is almost 30 years old, was the couple’s newlywedded days, and even the time they fought—like when Mark allegedly threw Kelly’s ring out the window—seemed like the end of everything. Kelly states that at the beginning it is very easy to let small things like money, careers, and tired children become huge problems, but “Mark taught me to walk away and take a breath. That’s when you realize that it is not a moment that defines your marriage.”
Being parents to three children now, they take the hard times as the reason for their joy. “Any time you see a couple who is really happy, you can be sure that they have gone through some very, very difficult things together and they have survived,” said Mark — and that survival is something to be proud of.
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Viola Davis and Julius Tennon: Different characters who accepted each other and where marriage actually starts
Viola Davis characterizes herself as “maybe just one step away from being a complete loner” and describes her husband Julius Tennon as “the mayor of everywhere.” She confesses that she is somewhat disorganized while he is “a little bit OCD,” but after getting married in 2003, they have become accustomed to letting each other be.
Davis conveys to the soon-to-be-married friends that wedlock does not commence at the altar but rather when you see a characteristic of a person that could drive you mad and still opt for love. “Your marriage starts when you look at a person whom you love more than anything and there is something about him… that is going to drive me crazy. I don’t know if I can handle this. And then immediately you say, ‘But you know what? I love him.’ That’s when marriage begins.”
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Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner: Apologize quickly — don’t be “angry twice”
Around 50 years together without letting your fights get worse is not how people usually live, Tomlin says. When she and her wife have an argument, she is usually the one to make the first step and apologize right away — “It’s not difficult because I love her and I cannot bear it, if she feels lonely even for five minutes.” The best thing, however, is to avoid having to apologize at all: when you angrily strike out at someone you will later regret hurting the person whom you love, “and you’ll be angry twice.” Your blood pressure gets worse and it is even worse for the relationship.
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Judges Judy Sheindlin & Jerry Sheindlin: Letting each other be – not trying to change someone into someone else
Jerry Sheindlin, an ex-New York State Supreme Court judge, claims the secret of their long-time marriage is that he usually allows Judge Judy to be the winner. In Judy’s case, it is less about winning and more about understanding that you will not always agree with the final decision.
The two of them separated for a short period in 1990 when Jerry was not able to take care of Judy after her father’s death; they got back together a year later and resettled. Judy has never forced him to suddenly change the house and become someone he is not. As she said, “Each relationship is different, but there is a common factor of dissatisfaction, and that dissatisfaction comes from trying to make another person different from who they are… I don’t think you should marry anyone under the assumption that you will change them.”
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Daniel Dae Kim and Mia Kim: A patient partner who keeps their family grounded
After the couple’s wedding in 1993, Daniel Dae Kim often talked how Mia’s patience was the thing that kept their family firm while he was out of the country with his various projects. “My wife, as she was waiting patiently for me to go off yet again to the next job in some corner of the world, she is the one who has kept our family stable. She has been great,” he told E! News in April 2025. In describing her attributes, he named her “a very patient woman” and mentioned their two sons as the ones “that keep me humble no matter what is going on.” “They influence my morals,” he said further. “It is wonderful to have that insight and guide.”
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