Salma Hayek Explains The REAL Reason She Married Her Billionaire Husband

In our time covering celebs we’ve seen a lot of comments about Salma Hayek and her husband.

For those who don’t know, the Frida star married François-Henri Pinault back on Valentine’s Day in 2009, after about two years of being engaged (and after welcoming their daughter Valentina). Because he’s a French billionaire and she’s unquestionably one of the world’s most beautiful women, many have made some pretty big assumptions about their marriage. Trust us, we’ve seen them.

And on this week’s episode of Armchair Expert Salma responded to the theories she had married Pinault for his money. On the occasion of her anniversary (or near it at least, we’re not sure when the podcast was recorded), Salma sung her husband’s praises. Well, after host Dax Shepard got the ball rolling!

Dax broached the subject by saying he too had misunderstood the relationship before seeing it firsthand, admitting:

“Can I say something about your husband, really quick? What a f**king nice, fun, generous, nice warm guy. He’s super sexy too. I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t know who he was, I just heard or maybe read in a headline that you had married a really rich guy. Maybe that’s why she married him. I meet him and I’m like, this guy is so foxy. Oh my God, the confidence, his eyes, he’s so good-looking and charming and I was like, oh, this motherf**ker could’ve been broke. He’s a bombshell.”

After that effusive praise, how could Salma not join in? The 54-year-old agreed:

“You know the thing is that in pictures you cannot begin to guess the magic in him. He’s made me become a much better person, and grow in such a good, healthy way.”

Awww! But she also made it clear she’s well aware of what everyone thinks:

“When I married him, everybody said, ‘Oh, it’s arranged marriage, she married him for the money.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, whatever, bitch. Think what you want.’ 15 years together, and we are strong in love. And I don’t even get offended, I’m like, yeah, whatever.”

We love how she says “whatever” like she doesn’t care — but adds in the “bitch” so she knows just how much contempt she has for the people out there making an ass out of u and umption.

She also brought up it’s not just the implication that she’s a gold digger she finds offensive. She gets defensive about what people think about her husband just because of his wealth:

“We’re touching on a very interesting conversation. There is a discrimination also to rich men. Immediately you think because somebody’s rich, [he] might not be a good person, might be somebody materialistic, might be somebody that doesn’t have values, might be somebody that is even stupid or that doesn’t deserve it. That in order to have a lot of money, you did it the wrong way, there is all this preconceptions and I heard them, by the way… ‘They’re controlling, they’re this, they’re that, they’re workaholics.'”

Salma admits she had some of the same preconceptions about rich guys, “the last thing” she wanted to be associated with — but François-Henri “melted them all away” with his generosity:

“My guy finished work, no matter how hard it was — and trust me he has a lot of responsibilities — big smile on his face, happy to be home, happy to see me and the kids, make us laugh. We go on vacation, he completely shuts off, he’s in the moment. It’s not just an insult to me. I’m not the one being judged only. They cannot begin to imagine what a joy that human being is.”

Wow.

In case you didn’t know what responsibilities Pinault has, he’s the CEO of Kering, a French Luxury group that owns such high end brands as Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and Alexander McQueen. His personal net worth is estimated around $7 billion. Yes, with a B.

But Salma is a movie star, and had been for a decade and a half before they got married. So she did have her own money — and has kept a certain amount of financial independence from her Monsieur. She told Allure in 2015:

“I have a system in my life that I’ve chosen, where my expenses from before the marriage are my expenses. And he goes, ‘I know. That’s why I want to marry you.’ Maybe that’s also part of what works great in my marriage. I still have my independence, but he likes it. I get a lot of respect from him.”

It sounds like she gets a lot of EVERYTHING from him. Find you a man that can do it all, we guess! (And if he owns Gucci, that’s not a bad thing either!)

[Image via WENN/Instar/Salma Hayek/Instagram/