NEED TO KNOW
- On the June 16 episode of Today with Jenna & Friends, Leslie Bibb and Sam Rockwell opened up about their relationship to Jenna Bush Hager
- Bibb revealed why she does “not want to get married” to Rockwell after 18 years together
- The couple started dating in 2007, shortly after meeting at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles
Leslie Bibb and Sam Rockwell won’t be walking down the aisle any time soon.
Even though the White Lotus season 3 costars have been in a relationship for 18 years, timing has nothing to do with why they aren’t married. While co-hosting Today with Jenna & Friends on Monday, June 16, Bibb revealed the reason behind their decision not to tie the knot.
“Listen, I love Sam Rockwell,” Bibb, 51, told Jenna Bush Hager of the Oscar winner. “I would put him in my pocket and carry him with me all the time. I love him. I do not want to get married.”
“I feel like we are married!” she added.
Rockwell, 56, brought up the topic of marriage early in their relationship, Bibb said, adding that she always shut down the idea.
“It annoyed the crap out of me because he’s like, ‘Really, you don’t want to get married?’ ” Bibb remembered. “I was like, ‘Stop saying it. I already said I don’t want to marry you. Stop asking me like I’m gonna pull like a sneak on you.’ But he didn’t want it either.”
“Maybe it’s probably something about the way we grew up, but I feel like if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” she continued.
The couple also agrees that they don’t want to have children together, Bibb said, noting that she never developed a desire to become a mother. “I just don’t have that chip in me.”
The actors still keep the spark alive after nearly two decades together by putting their relationship first.
“You have to constantly choose the relationship. We’ve been together for 18 years … it’s a long time but I do think it gets better,” Bibb shared. “Like the intimacy of a relationship is sexy to me. You can all have the hot sex in the beginning, but you gotta reinvent.”
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Later on in the episode, Rockwell joined Bibb and Bush Hager on stage. He gave the women bouquets before sitting down and sharing his first impressions of Bibb, whom he met at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles in 2007.
“We had that kind of thunderbolt, like ‘Dream Weaver’ moment in Wayne’s World when we saw each other,” Rockwell gushed. “I found out that she studied in the same acting school that I did, so that was really handy.”
He recognized Bibb from her character Carley Bobby in the 2006 comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Meanwhile, Bibb thought Rockwell was “really cute” but tried to play it cool by pretending she had no idea who he was.
Their eventual first day date went so well that it extended later into the evening, which caused Rockwell to cancel his nighttime date that he had scheduled with someone else.
“It’s good, you were single, you were ready to mingle,” Bibb told Rockwell. “And then I just put my little claws in you, I put my talons in and I said, ‘No, you’re mine.’ ”
“And they’re still in,” Rockwell added.
Back in September 2022, Rockwell told The Standard his reasoning for why he and Bibb have never wed.
“[We’re] basically married. She’s in my will. I feel like we are married. We live like a married couple,” he said, adding that they don’t want kids because they “just like it the way it is.”
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