Jennifer Coolidge is a pop culture mainstay thanks to her hilarious roles in American Pie, Legally Blonde and Best in Show. With her award-winning turn in The White Lotus, she became a bigger star than ever in her 60s.
Coolidge’s raspy delivery and campy style are instantly recognizable, and she’s an undeniably delightful screen presence. Offscreen, she’s just as sassy as her characters and refreshingly outspoken about her decision not to marry and have kids. Here’s a look at her love life and what she’s said about it.
Who has Jennifer Coolidge dated?
While some of Jennifer Coolidge’s characters have had messy love lives (we still haven’t gotten over the chaos of her White Lotus relationship and the tragic way it ended up for her!) the actress’s relationships haven’t been as dramatic.
In the late ’90s, Coolidge dated Saturday Night Live star Chris Kattan and had a small role in his 1998 SNL spinoff movie A Night at the Roxbury. In his memoir, Kattan described Coolidge as a “a tall, messy, sexy, tough, charmingly crass Boston native bombshell,” but the relationship didn’t last.
After dating Kattan, Coolidge dated Banks McClintock, who had a bit part in the 2001 comedy Not Another Teen Movie and became her writing partner.
Coolidge may not have stepped out publicly with many of her beaus, but that doesn’t mean her personal life has been boring. In fact, the opposite is true, and the actress has talked about how playing the character that put the phrase “MILF” on the map in American Pie led to quite a few dates. As she put it, she “got a lot of sexual action from American Pie” and joked about how, without that role, there would be “like 200 people that I would never have slept with!”
Coolidge also said that playing the sexy mom who inspired an NSFW piece of slang “did sort of open up the world to a much broader group of handsome men—and younger men” and revealed that American Pie “helped my dating life in a way that I can’t ever explain”—even if these dates weren’t with guys she was bringing onto the red carpet.
Why Jennifer Coolidge never married: ‘I haven’t found the love of my life’
Coolidge has never married, saying, “I mean, my dating life, I’ve never found anyone quite right for myself. I haven’t found the love of my life.” The actress has been candid because some men have found her bold personality and Hollywood success intimidating. “Their perception of your life is so much bigger and better than what it really is,” she said. “They somehow project a bunch of s–t onto you, that you’re usurping them or you’re doing something to them. You’re some sort of verb.”
The star has also never found a man with the kind of personality she’d like to settle down with. “I’ve never had . . . a laid-back boyfriend that was just full of joy . . . someone who laughs at all your shortcomings. That’s never who I choose for myself,” she said.
Even though Coolidge is currently single, she’s still holding out for love, and pointedly said, “I don’t want this to be the end of my life and my romance and all that. But I don’t know how people do it anymore. Sometimes I feel like you got this good little thing going once in a while with somebody. You get too much permission to, you know, be you. The thing dissolves pretty quick. There’s so many girls who would be like, Well, f–k them. They can’t handle it. But my feeling is, like, Who wants to be alone, too?”
Clearly, it’s not easy for Coolidge to find someone who can live up to her signature fabulousness, and she’s rightly gotten tired of chasing guys who don’t deserve her. “My weakness in life has always been men,” she said, “and—a lot of women do this—you sell out for a guy. A lot of my life was chasing unattainable men, and it got me nowhere.”
Why Jennifer Coolidge never had kids: ‘I’m very immature’
Coolidge has also gotten real about why she’s never had kids, saying, “I’m very, very immature. I think that has kept me from having children, because I’m sort of a child. Maybe if I had kids, I would’ve had to have grown up.”
Coolidge calls herself immature, but we think the sense of humor and forthrightness she has about the decisions she’s made and her status as a single and child-free woman are actually quite the opposite.
