She Married in Secret — and Didn’t Tell Anyone for Eight Months
Bo Derek had a wedding ring on for nearly a year before the world found out. When her husband finally let it slip — live, on national television — even his own co-host didn’t see it coming.
Derek, now 69, became a household name in 1979 after starring in “10,” directed by Blake Edwards. But long before that fame, her life took a turn most people don’t know about — one that started when she was still a teenager.

A Beginning That Raised Eyebrows
In 1973, at age 16, Mary Cathleen Collins — her birth name — met director John Derek while he was filming on the Greek island of Mykonos. He was 46. He was also still married to actress Linda Evans.
The relationship that followed prompted Evans’s divorce and sent the couple to Europe, partly to stay outside the reach of California’s statutory age laws. They married on June 10, 1976, once she’d turned 19. He was 49.
It’s the kind of story that, told today, would dominate headlines for entirely different reasons. But the marriage lasted 22 years — until John Derek died of cardiovascular disease in 1998, at age 71, in Santa Maria, California.
Decades Later, History Repeats — Quietly
Bo Derek didn’t remarry for more than two decades. Then came John Corbett, the “Sex and the City” actor she met on a blind date in 2002, arranged by Hollywood agent Norby Walters.
The two dated for 18 years. Friends and family assumed marriage might never happen — Derek herself had said as much publicly, telling reporters in early 2020 that walking down the aisle “hasn’t been” part of their plans.
Then, quietly, it was.
The Reveal Nobody Expected
In August 2021, Corbett appeared on the CBS talk show “The Talk.” Mid-conversation with co-host Jerry O’Connell, he dropped the news almost as an afterthought.
“I can’t believe that I forgot to tell you that around Christmastime, we got married,” Corbett said, flashing his wedding band for the camera.
The couple had wed in a private ceremony in December 2020 — eight months earlier. A representative for Derek confirmed the marriage to TODAY. “We’re pretty private people,” Corbett explained. “We didn’t make an announcement. All our friends and family knew.”

What We Know
Bo Derek began a relationship with director John Derek in 1973, at age 16; he was 46.
They married in 1976, when she was 19; the marriage lasted until his death in 1998.
Derek met actor John Corbett on a blind date in 2002.
The couple privately married in December 2020, after 18 years together.
Corbett publicly revealed the marriage in August 2021, confirmed by Derek’s representative.
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Why This Matters
Bo Derek’s story lands on two very different nerves for modern readers. Her first marriage — to a man 30 years older, under circumstances that today would trigger immediate legal scrutiny — reflects a Hollywood era many now view with real discomfort, where power imbalances between young actresses and older male directors went largely unquestioned. It’s a reminder of how much public norms around age, consent, and influence in the industry have shifted.

Her second marriage tells a quieter, gentler story: two people choosing privacy over publicity, commitment without spectacle, in an industry built on the opposite instinct. For audiences exhausted by oversharing and manufactured celebrity drama, that restraint reads as its own kind of statement.
Corbett summed it up simply when he finally broke the silence: “So, you’re my buddy, and now I guess I’m telling all of America, or the world.”