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Salma Hayek got married in 2009. She had no idea it was her wedding day.

Salma Hayek didn't want to marry her now-husband of 15 years, François Henri-Pinault. 

Yes, she loved him. 

Yes, she wanted to build a life with him. 

Yes, she had agreed to marry him when he proposed... eventually.

But ahead of the big day to the billionaire, doubt crept in.

Watch the trailer Magic Mike's Last Dance, starring Salma Hayek. Post continues after video. 


Video via Universal Pictures.

So her family basically "dragged" her down the aisle. 

"They just took me to the court," she recalled of the moment. "My parents, my brother, they were all ganging up on me. I had a phobia of the marriage thing."

"I was nervous.… I had said yes to the marriage, but I just wouldn’t actually show up on the day or do it," she added. 

Salma Hayek and Fran?ois-Henri Pinault met in 2006. Image: Getty.

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The pair met in 2006 at a gala at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Italy. 

"It’s such a romantic, amazing story, but it is mine. I don’t want to vulgarise it by making it into a story to make myself interesting," she told Armchair Expert podcast in 2019. 

When they actually did marry, she realised nothing felt "different". They tied the knot again a few months later in April of that year, in the city they first met. 

Almost 14 years later, Hayek said marrying her husband made her "a much better person" and allowed her to grow "in such a good, healthy way."

Unfortunately for the actor, it doesn't mean she's exempt from baseless accusations - many of which presume Hayek married for wealth.

"When I married him, everybody said, 'It’s an arranged marriage, she’s marrying him for the money'," she said in 2021. 'I'm like, 'Yeah, whatever b*tch, think what you want.' Fifteen years together and we are strong in love and I don’t even get offended." 

Image: Instagram @salmahayek.

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"There is a discrimination also to rich men. Immediately you think because somebody’s rich, [they] might not be a good person, might be somebody materialistic, might be somebody that doesn’t have values…" she explained. "There is all these preconceptions, and I heard them, by the way. It was the last thing I wanted — it was not my type at all. And I came in with the preconceptions and he [melted] them all away."

Pinault, who is the CEO of the luxury goods company Kering (which owns Gucci, Saint Auren, Balenciaga, Veneta and Alexander McQueen) already had three children when he met Hayek; 25-year-old François,  22-year-old Mathilde and 16-year-old Augustin James Evangelista.

They had their daughter together in 2007, who they named Valentina Paloma.

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Mathilde and Valentine with their parents, 2023. Image: Getty.

Hayek says "nothing mattered" after she became a mum. 

"My case was very particular because I became a mother very late. I did it when I found the partner of my life and I had a stable career, but I was so eager to have this daughter that nothing else mattered to me," she told Vogue Mexico last year.

"I always wanted to have a lot of children, and I was not able to. My body, as a miracle, had one," she said. "The huge blessing I've had is that my husband has three other children."

Feature Image: Getty.

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