Bette Midler reveals surprising secret to her 40-year marriage – separate bedrooms

Midler and husband Martin von Haselberg tied the knot in 1984, just six weeks after their first date

Bette Midler has shared the secret to her 40-year marriage with husband Martin von Haselberg.

The Tony-winning actor, 78, recently reflected on her decades-long relationship with the Argentinian-born artist in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. Speaking about her latest film The Fabulous Four, in which her character wears a wedding dress, Midler recounted her own wedding and candidly confessed the secret to their successful union.

“Separate bedrooms,” she told the outlet, reportedly letting out a smile. “My husband snores.”

The Hocus Pocus star admitted that they’ve even slept in separate bedrooms since the start of their relationship, noting that “it’s been a fabulous ride” for the pair.

In The Fabulous Four – which also stars Megan Mullally, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Susan Sarandon – Midler plays Marilyn, a recent widow who decides to get married again. Elsewhere during the interview, the First Wives Club actor explained how filming the movie brought back memories of her own whirlwind wedding to her now-husband.

Midler and von Haselberg were married in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1984, just six weeks after their first date. She told the outlet that she didn’t love her wedding dress and chose “the first thing on the rack” before their nuptials.

“I think I wore a very slim silhouette for my own wedding – it was pale gray and it had beads on it. It was not my favorite,” Midler said. “I was married in haste, and I just grabbed the first thing on the rack and I went.”

Bette Midler and husband Martin von Haselberg were married in 1984 (Getty Images)

The couple had initially met in 1981 at a concert in Los Angeles, California, she previously explained to Vanity Fair, but didn’t reconnect until two years later. They went on to welcome one child together, daughter Sophie von Haselberg, in 1986.

Midler isn’t the only celebrity to admit that sleeping in separate bedrooms has had a positive impact on their marriage. Most notably, actor Cameron Diaz has shared that she and her husband of nearly 10 years, Good Charlotte musician Benji Madden, have separate bedrooms.

In fact, the Charlie’s Angels star has expressed that she wants to “normalize” sleeping separately because it’s been extremely beneficial to their relationship. While appearing on the Lipstick on the Rim podcast in December 2023, Diaz said: “We should normalize separate bedrooms. To me, I would literally, I have my house, you have yours. We have the family house in the middle. I will go and sleep in my room. You go sleep in your room. I’m fine.”

“And we have the bedroom in the middle that we can convene in for our relations,” she added.

The 51-year-old actor also maintained that she believed couples should sleep in separate bedrooms even “before” she married Madden in January 2015. The couple are now parents to two children: daughter Raddix, four, and son Cardinal, four months.