Sean Penn and Madonna may have divorced more than three decades ago, but the actor isn’t done talking about their marriage.
During a recent appearance on The Louis Theroux Podcast, Penn responded to comments his ex-wife made about their short-lived marriage… 34 years after she made them.
Theroux asked the Mystic River star, 64, how he felt about Madonna calling him the “love of her life,” a claim she made in the 1991 documentary Truth or Dare, which was released two years after their 1989 divorce.
“She’s very sweet,” Penn replied, adding that his ex-wife, 66, has been “a good friend for a lot of years.” However, the actor also acknowledged their marriage was far from successful, admitting, “It didn’t take us long to realize that we had mistaken a good first date for a wedding partner.”
“It [was] not all jail,” said Penn, “But there was a lot of alcohol, and she’d be fairly accusing me of that.”
In Dec. 1988, shortly before the couple separated, the “Material Girl” singer filed an assault complaint against Penn, but withdrew it the following month. However, Penn was arrested four times during their marriage for assaulting other people: first in 1985 for allegedly beating two journalists with a rock after they attempted to photograph him with Madonna, then in Jan. 1986 for punching a third journalist, again in June 1986 for fighting musician David Wolinski, and finally in 1987 for punching an extra on the set of his film Colors.
The couple was married from 1985-1989.
Rumors that Penn was abusive to Madonna have long circled the former couple, particularly after the 1991 book Madonna—Unauthorized alleged he had regularly assaulted her during their marriage. Both Penn and Madonna have repeatedly denied those allegations.
In 2022, the pop icon supported Penn in his defamation lawsuit against Empire creator Lee Daniels, filed after Daniels publicly defended actor Terrence Howard’s admitted domestic abuse by calling him “no different from Marlon Brando or Sean Penn.”
In an affidavit supporting the suit, Madonna wrote that while their marriage was emotionally volatile and often led to “heated arguments,” any allegations Penn had “struck” or otherwise physically assaulted her were “completely outrageous, malicious, reckless, and false.”
Reflecting more on their marriage, Penn told Theroux, “It didn’t take us long to recover after we got divorced,” and said he still has “a lot of fond memories” of their time as a couple.
Penn went on to marry actress Robin Wright, with whom he had two children, Hopper and Dylan, from 1996-2010. He was also married to Australian actress Leila George, the daughter of actors Vincent D’Onofrio and Greta Scacchi, from 2020-2022.
Madonna went on to marry director Guy Ritchie from 2000-2008.
While Penn’s marriage and divorce may be in the past, rest assured, the Oscar-winner made plenty of other news-making claims in his 90-minute conversation with Theroux.
At one point, Penn discussed his experience meeting Donald Trump, calling the president “the tough guy who never was,” and saying, “What he values is so base that I won’t equate that with intelligence. It’s truly void of soul.”
However, Penn feels much friendlier about a different controversial figure. The actor repeatedly defended Woody Allen, saying he didn’t believe the allegations of child sexual abuse made by Allen’s daughter Dylan Farrow, and that he doesn’t consider Allen’s son, Pulitzer Prize winner Ronan Farrow, a real journalist.
Penn, who starred in Allen’s 1999 film Sweet and Lowdown, concluded by saying he’d work with the embattled director again “in a heartbeat.”
The post Sean Penn on Madonna Marriage: ‘It Was Not All Jail’ appeared first on The Daily Beast.
