Diane Keaton on Why She Never Married and Chose to Have Kids in Her 50s
While the late Oscar winner had several high-profile relationships, she was never interested in marriage
Diane Keaton had plenty of high-profile romances — but she never wanted to be a wife.
For the first time since the passing of their beloved mother, Dexter and Duke Keaton have shared emotional words that reveal the heart behind the Hollywood legend.
In a joint statement, they said:
“Our mom was our home — warm, funny, and endlessly kind. She wasn’t just a movie star to us. She was the person who made everything feel safe, who made ordinary days feel special.”
Dexter, who was adopted by Diane in 1996, added:
“She taught me to be brave, to love deeply, and to laugh even when life gets hard. She was my best friend and my greatest teacher.”
Duke, adopted in 2001, shared his own quiet tribute:
“She believed in me before I ever believed in myself. Mom always said that love is the only thing that really matters — and that’s what she gave us every single day.”
Their words remind the world that behind Diane Keaton’s wit, elegance, and Hollywood success was a mother who poured her heart into her children.
Even in her absence, Dexter and Duke say they still feel her presence:
“We’ll keep her laughter alive, and her love will guide us — always.”
The Oscar winner — who died at age 79 in California — opened up to PEOPLE in 2019 about embracing her independence.
“Today I was thinking about this,” she said about marriage. “I’m 73 and I think I’m the only one in my generation, and maybe before, who has been a single woman all her life.”
While she had long-term relationships with Al Pacino, Warren Beatty and Woody Allen, among others, Keaton underscored that it would not “have been a good idea for me to have married.”
“I’m really glad I didn’t, and I’m sure they’re happy about it, too,” she added about her famous exes.
Keaton explained her stance on marriage went all the way back to her teenage years. “I remember one day in high school, this guy came up to me and said, ‘One day you’re going to make a good wife,’” she recalled. “And I thought, ‘I don’t want to be a wife. No.’”
When asked about dating in her later years, Keaton always insisted she was happier being single.
“I don’t date,” she told AARP The Magazine in 2023, adding that it was “highly unlikely” she would pursue another relationship. “I don’t remember anyone calling me, going, ‘This is So-and-So, I’d like to take you out.’ They don’t happen. Of course not.”
Though she never wed, Keaton welcomed two children, daughter Dexter, 29, and son Duke, 25, through adoption when she was in her 50s.
“I didn’t think that I was ever going to be prepared to be a mother,” she previously told Ladies’ Home Journal. “Motherhood was not an urge I couldn’t resist. It was more like a thought I’d been thinking for a very long time. So I plunged in.”
Both of Keaton’s children have largely stayed out of the spotlight, only making rare appearances to support their mom during milestone career moments.
“They have no interest in what I do, which I think is very healthy,” Keaton said in 2007 of Dexter and Duke, who joined her to celebrate her Hand & Footprint Ceremony in 2022. “We live a relatively normal — well, sort of normal — life.”
