Donna Mills decades-long romance with Larry Gilman without marriage, Digi Mart USA News: “Knots Landing” star Donna Mills is revealing the reason she has never walked down the aisle despite her 25-year romance with actor Larry Gilman. During a recent appearance on the “Still Here Hollywood Podcast with Steve Kmetko,” the 85-year-old actress, who has been in a relationship with Gilman, 76, since 2001, opened up about why she has chosen to avoid marriage.
“I was always so independent,” she told Kmetko. “I’m still very independent.” Mills said she never wanted to be subject to what is required when someone gets married, and she also did not want to promise she would love someone forever.
“I don’t know if I would do that or not,” she admitted with a laugh.
Mills said the topic of marriage had also come up with her daughter Chloe, who recently married and had a baby. “It’s funny because my daughter asked me that.
My daughter just got married,” Mills said. “And she just had a baby.” After Kmetko told her she did not “look like a grandmother,” Mills pointed to a necklace inscribed with the word “Grandma,” which she said was a gift from Chloe.
Mills explained that she and Chloe have discussed what name her grandson would use for her. “And I said, ‘Oh, I know.
Glamma,'” Mills told Kmetko with a laugh. “But she didn’t like that.” Chloe was adopted by Mills as a newborn in 1994, when Mills was 54.
Seven years later, Mills began dating Gilman, whom she has described as an “incredibly kind, funny, wonderful man.”
“I love him,” she told The Daily Beast in 2022. “I’m lucky to have found him.
I found him late, but I found him. Everybody loves him.
He’s great.” Before meeting Gilman, Mills had an on-and-off relationship for around 20 years, starting in 1979, with advertising executive Richard Holland, who was previously married to singer Chaka Khan. Asked why she has never married, Mills said, “I don’t remember anyone ever getting down on one knee.”
Mills also cited her independent streak and said she and Gilman never felt the need to marry after meeting later in life. “I am so freaking independent.
I just am. I’m very independent and by the time Larry and I met we were both pretty established,” she said.
“To combine everything at that point is really difficult. So we just combined our lives but not our finances and stuff like that.
It’s much cleaner, much better.”
Mills said maintaining her independence had always given her a sense of security, even while sharing her life with a partner. “I’ve always felt a woman being independent was important,” she said.
“It made me feel safer, I guess, to know that I can take care of myself. I want someone to be in my life to love and be with, to be a companion and to go places and all that, but if I have to I can take care of myself.” She added, “And really, I had enough marriages as Abby!” referring to the character she played on “Knots Landing.”
Mills became a television sensation playing the glamorous and ruthless Abby Cunningham on “Knots Landing” from 1980 to 1989. Abby tied the knot four times over the course of the hit primetime soap, though one union was annulled almost immediately after the wedding.
Mills and Gilman share a home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood, where they have a vineyard. In 2015, Mills told Closer Weekly that the vineyard was a gift from her longtime partner.
“Larry planted a vineyard for me last year,” Donna shared. “He’s really such a good guy.”
The couple went on to launch Mandeville Vineyards, a small-scale wine brand produced from grapes grown on their vineyard in Brentwood’s Mandeville Canyon. Mills, who surprised fans when she announced in July that she had launched an OnlyFans account, previously discussed unusual requests from subscribers, including one involving her vineyard.
In August, Mills appeared on the “Creators Inc. Podcast,” hosted by Andy Bachman, CEO of the talent agency Creators, Inc., which manages her OnlyFans account.
During that appearance, Bachman noted that some “foot kink people” had asked to see the actress “stomping on grapes” with her bare feet in her vineyard. “I’m gonna do it,” Mills said.
“I tried to shoot it myself. But you can’t shoot something while you’re stomping, it just doesn’t work.” She added, “I’m going to do that very soon and do it right so that you know people can really enjoy it.
I think it’s really funny and fun, and it’s the kind of thing that I want to be able to share with the fans.”
