Gene Kelly's widow says their nearly 50-year age gap was 'not an issue'

Gene Kelly's widow never saw a problem with their nearly 50-year age gap.

Patricia Ward Kelly, who married the "Singin' in the Rain" star when she was 31 and he was 78, said that the "age issue was not an issue" for her in an interview with Fox News published Wednesday.

"(The) funny thing is, I never really even thought about it because he was so young at heart," she shared. "He was young in the way he spoke, in his demeanor, in his brightness of his mind, certainly."

In fact, Kelly told Fox that she "didn't even add up the difference" in years between them until tabloids started making "such a big deal" about it.

Kelly previously told The Irish Times that she met her future husband in 1985, when he was 73 and she was 26 and she was working on a documentary about the Smithsonian museum that he hosted. At the time, she said she had never heard of the actor and only learned that he was "really famous" after working with him for a week. Six months later, he invited her to his home in California and asked her to help write his memoir.

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Kelly was married to the "American in Paris" star until his death in 1996 at age 83. She was his third wife, and he had three children from his previous marriages. In her previous Irish Times interview, Kelly admitted that when she and Gene married, she lied to the press that she was five years older, claiming she was 36 instead of 31.

Speaking with Fox News, Kelly said her parents "understood" the relationship and "didn't see it as any problem."

Kelly has worked to protect her late husband's legacy since his death and has criticized an upcoming biopic about the actor, telling Business Insider in 2022, "That was one of Gene's strongest objections. He said, 'I absolutely do not want a biopic.'"

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Kelly's comments come after the trailer for the Anne Hathaway movie "The Idea of You," which depicts the romance between a woman in her 40s and a man in his 20s, recently reignited a conversation about age gaps in relationships. While discussing the trailer on "The View," Whoopi Goldberg, 68, revealed that one of her most recent relationships was with a man 40 years her senior.

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"Your age is not what's going to get me into your arms," Goldberg said. "It's not your age that I'm concerned about unless you're under 18."

Kristin Cavallari, 37, also recently slammed critics of her relationship with Mark Estes, 24. "When they’re all up in arms that im dating a 24 year old. Andddd?" she wrote in the caption of a TikTok, in which she mouthed the words, "So what are you gonna do about it?"

Contributing: Jay Stahl, USA TODAY