Samuel L. Jackson Overcame Obstacles in Marriage With LaTanya Richardson: ‘Everybody’s Got Flaws’

Samuel L. Jackson opened up about how he and wife LaTanya Richardson Jackson have been able to keep their marriage going for 44 years in the Hollywood spotlight.

“A lot of tolerance, because everybody’s got flaws, and not giving up when it would be easy to give up,” the Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist actor said in AARP The Magazine‘s October/November 2024 issue. “I’ve done s–t in my marriage that’s crazy, you know? She has, too, in her head, or whatever in reality, but you got to go, ‘Is that a breakup offense?’ Or is it just that we need to spend a little time together and get some understanding about it?”

“Or there are certain things that you learn to ignore about people — that she’s learned to ignore about me,” he continued. “And one of the things she had to accept is that I’m going to go to work. I’m going to go to work all the time until, you know, it’s time.”

Samuel, 75, and LaTanya, 74, have been married since 1980. They share one daughter named Zoe Jackson, who was born in 1982.

During an appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show in May 2023, the Piano Lesson actor recalled how his engagement to LaTanya happened.

“I came home one day, and she already had these invitations printed up, and she gave me a stack and said, ‘Be here,’” he said.

But the Blue Bloods alum remembered the proposal a bit differently, telling Samuel that’s not what happened.

“I actually had to go and talk to her grandfather because he told her he wanted to walk down the isle before he died … and so I went and asked him for her hand,” he noted of how his wife remembers the proposal.

“And that’s probably what happened because I was on drugs and I don’t know what the hell was going on in my life at the time,” Samuel confessed, adding, “She’s probably right. But I like my version better because it sounds so much funnier.”

The Marvels actor also admitted that there was another small blip in the road when it came to planning their wedding. “The problem was, she had 23 bridesmaids and I didn’t have 23 friends,” Samuel said.

He confessed that he “had my friends ask their friends if they were doing anything” to try and even out the bridal party.

Now, the duo have one of the longest-lasting marriages in Hollywood and have so many fans rooting for them.

“In the beginning, we always said the most revolutionary thing that Black people could do was stay together, raise their children with the nucleus of having a father and a mother, since everybody likes to pretend that that’s not the dynamic of the African American family. That it’s just children out here being raised by women, which we know is false,” LaTanya told People in March 2022. “In order to change that narrative, we made a decision to say, ‘We are going to stay together no matter what. We’ll figure it out.'”

“It’s two people who respect each other, love each other and look out for each other,” Samuel added.