Salma Hayek has revealed that she and her billionaire husband, Francois-Henri Pinault, never signed a prenup when they married over a decade ago.
The Mexican-born actor, 58, opened up about her 15-year marriage with the CEO of Kering, a luxury group that owns high-end brands such as Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, and Alexander McQueen. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Hayek explained that she and her husband keep their finances entirely separate.
“I support a lot of the aspects of my life and myself,” she said. “I have the pressure to make a certain amount of money, and I like it. And now, I decided, I want to make more.”
Both Hayek and Pinault were originally born into wealthy families. The Frida star’s father was an oil executive, and she grew up in the coastal city of Coatzacoalcos with four live-in maids. Meanwhile, Pinault inherited the luxury retail conglomerate – then named Pinault-Printemps-Redoute – from his father, François Pinault, in 2005.
However, Hayek was forced to support her family as an actor in Hollywood once her father lost his fortune, a challenging period where she says she “became the best version of myself.”
Upon marrying the French businessman in 2009, the House of Gucci star explained how she was thrust into an environment where money largely dominated conversations – a lifestyle change she wasn’t expecting.
“To me, the excitement about having a lot of money was that I didn’t have to think about money, and it turned out all people wanted to talk to me about was money,” Hayek told the WSJ. “Strangers coming to me that aren’t even friends, but they think we should be friends because they’re rich, too.”
According to Forbes, Pinault has an estimated net worth of $20.6bn. He’s currently ranked the 99th richest person in the world.
The Magic Mike’s Last Dance star began dating Pinault in 2006, and they welcomed their now-17-year-old daughter, Valentina Paloma Pinault, the following year. After tying the knot in Paris on Valentine’s Day in 2009, the couple went on to have a larger wedding celebration in Venice, Italy.
Pinault shares two children from his previous marriage to Dorothée Lepère: son François, 26, and daughter Mathilde, 23. Pinault also has an 18-year-old son, Augustin James, from his relationship with supermodel Linda Evangelista.
Despite being together for nearly two decades, Hayak has received criticism in the past for her relationship with the billionaire, namely from critics who think she married Pinault for money. Hayek defended her marriage to Pinault during an appearance on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast in 2021.
“I didn’t know who he was,” Shepard said at the time. “I just heard or maybe read in a headline that you had married a very rich guy, maybe that’s why she married him. I don’t know. I meet him and I’m like, ‘This guy is so foxy, the confidence, his eyes, he’s so good looking and charming.’”
Hayak replied: “When I married him, everybody said, ‘Oh, it’s an arranged marriage, she married him for the money.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, whatever, b****. Think what you want.’ Fifteen years together, and we are strong in love. And I don’t even get offended, I’m like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’”
