Diane Keaton death: Why Diane Keaton never married and everything to know about her relationship history and biggest loves before welcoming two children on her own | ‘I don’t want to be a wife’ explainer
Hollywood and the rest of the world are mourning the loss of Oscar-winning actress Diane Keaton following her death at 79.
Despite never marrying, the Annie Hall actress had some great Hollywood romances with the likes of Al Pacino, Warren Beatty, and Woody Allen, and went on to welcome two children through adoption in her 50s.
Tying the knot was never on the cards for the actress – something she’s previously said she’s happy about.
“Today, I was thinking about this,” she said about marriage during an interview with People in 2019.
“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.”
Despite long-term relationships with Pacino and Allen, she said 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.
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Her strong stance on marriage was something that stemmed from 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.
“I thought, ‘I don’t want to be a wife. No.'”
Here, we take a look back at the great loves of Diane Keaton over the years.
Woody Allen
When it comes to her relationships, Keaton and Allen was arguably her most public one.
The couple were romantically linked in the early 1970s before going their separate ways, although they remained close in the decades that followed.
The pair collaborated on several projects, including 1972’s Play It Again, Sam, 1975’s Love and Death and, most notably, 1977’s Annie Hall.
Keaton won an Oscar for her role in Annie Hall, and at the time it was speculated that the movie was based on her relationship with Allen.
In 1997 she shut that down, telling the New York Times that “it’s not true, but there are elements of truth in it.”
Despite their romance never making it, their friendship stayed strong. Keaton publicly defended him following allegations of sexual abuse toward his daughter, Dylan Farrow.
Allen has always denied the claim, which was investigated at the time but led to no criminal charges.
She has also supported him through backlash pointed at him during the #MeToo Movement in 2018.
In the wake of her death, Allen, now 89, has reflected on his own mortality.
“He is extremely distraught and surprised and upset” about the news of Keaton’s death, a source tells People.
“He appreciated her very much.” Allen, the source also says, did not know of Keaton’s declining health: “Nobody seemed to know. He was surprised.”
Al Pacino
When Keaton and Pacino worked together on the 1971 film The Godfather, she developed quite a crush on the Hollywood heavyweight.
The pair didn’t start dating until the ’80s, where they were locked into an on-again, off-again relationship.
“I was mad for him. Charming, hilarious, a nonstop talker,” Keaton told People in 2017.
“There was an aspect of him that was like a lost orphan, like this kind of crazy idiot savant. And oh, gorgeous!”
In the end an ultimatum about marriage is what pushed their relationship to breaking point, after he wouldn’t commit to her.
In 2017, Pacino attended Keaton’s AFI Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony.
He ended a tribute speech with, “You’re a great artist. I love you forever.”
Warren Beatty
Keaton and Beatty dated briefly after meeting on the set of 1981’s Reds.
“The first time I saw Warren was in Splendor in the Grass [in 1961]. I mean, come on! He was, I mean, to die for. A dream,” she told Variety in 2016.
“Not only was he beautiful, gorgeous and sexy and captivating and mysterious and a great movie star but he was also an unbelievable producer and director, or is rather, is also an unbelievable director and producer. All of this is just so unique.”
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The couple dated for five years, but like her other past relationships, it seemed like they stayed on good terms.
During an interview with People in 2016, Beatty – who went on to marry actress Annette Bening – had nothing but praise for Keaton.
“I love her,” he said. “She’s a combination of integrity and humor and intelligence and fairness and, did I say beauty? A brilliant comedic sense.”
Keaton’s children and family life
Despite never marrying, family was something that Keaton was drawn to.
She went on to welcome two children, daughter Dexter, now 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.”
Despite the Oscar-winner being a huge star in the entertainment industry, her children have largely stayed out of the spotlight.
Over the years both Dexter and Duke have made rare public appearances alongside their mum, mainly for milestone 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.”
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