Paul Simon Gets Candid About the ‘Mistakes’ That Ended Carrie Fisher Marriage
In the MGM+ documentary In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon (via People), the musician got candid while reflecting on his whirlwind marriage to Carrie Fisher.
Simon and Fisher met in 1976, whilst the latter was filming her breakout role as Princess Leia in Star Wars. They married in 1983 before quickly divorcing the following year. However, the two would continue to date on and off throughout the ‘80s.
Simon explained that while he and Fisher made a good couple, their different upbringings made it difficult to navigate the sudden fame both were experiencing. “Carrie was much more show business oriented," Simon said.
Fisher was the daughter of Singin’ in the Rain star Debbie Reynolds and musician Eddie Fisher, two of the most famous mid-century performers.
"I went along with that—that’s the world that she grew up with; she was used to it,” Simon continued. “She was used to a lot of press and things like that. It wasn’t intimidating or anything. She knew how to manipulate it and make it work for her. She was really good at it, and I wasn’t.”
Simon is seen in the documentary speaking about his divorce from Fisher just a year after it happened. “I mean, what was I thinking?” he asked rhetorically. “Certainly not thinking about life, you know, that you actually, like, have to stop. Marriage is very…it’s a hard thing to do. You have to concentrate on—not everything can happen at once, not everything is a media event.”
Simon credited the end of their union to “all types of mistakes on top of mistakes on top of mistakes…I realized I could become exhausted by—I could exhaust myself from emotional upheaval.”
Saturday Night Live mastermind Lorne Michaels, a longtime friend of Simon’s, served as the musician's best man at the wedding. “There were lots of things that were remarkable about the time, but also it was two people at career peaks, and that’s always complicated,” Michaels explained. “All of it was kind of a whirlwind.”
Fisher was Simon’s second wife after the singer’s marriage to Peggy Harper from 1969 until 1975. Simon later married fellow musician Edie Brickell in 1992. The couple, who are still married, share three children.
In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon is currently streaming on MGM+.