Getty Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal
Farrah Fawcett was an actress and model best known for her role on the ABC series Charlie’s Angels. She was hailed as the premiere sex symbol of the 1970s, and would go on to date several famous men before her untimely death in 2009. Her career is the focus of the new ABC documentary This Is Farrah Fawcett.
Fawcett’s longtime partner Ryan O’Neal is perhaps her best known relationship, but she was also romanced by filmmakers, professional athletes, and fellow actors during her lifetime. Read on to learn more about Fawcett’s ex-boyfriends and her dating history.
1. She Dated TV Star Lee Majors In the 1960s & They Eventually Married
Fawcett and Lee Majors started dating in 1968. The latter spotted a photo of Fawcett in his agent’s office, and asked to be introduced to her. “I remember thinking she was quite beautiful and had a beautiful name,” he told People Magazine. Given that Majors was already famous as the star of the western series The Big Valley, he took it upon himself to mentor Fawcett and help her career.
“She was just a little girl from Corpus Christi,” he recalled. “All the mistakes I had made and the lessons I had learned the hard way, I tried to use to help Farrah.” Majors used his clout to get Fawcett guest roles on TV, including her breakout part on the Owen Marshall series. They married in 1973, but by the end of the decade, the celebrity couple had drifted apart. They finalized their divorce in 1982, after Fawcett had fallen for Majors’ close friend Ryan O’Neal.
Majors maintained that their split had nothing to do with the fact that Fawcett became a bigger star than he did. “All the stories that I was jealous of her career are just a lot of crap,” he explained. “I was always 110 percent behind her and proud of her. There are times when I think that perhaps I created a monster. But then, deep down, I know that’s just not true.”
2. She Had a ‘Volatile’ Relationship With Lifelong Partner Ryan O’Neal
Fawcett dated Ryan O’Neal for several decades. The couple were considered to be one of the most famous celebrity pairings in history, and Fawcett herself described their relationship as “magical” in an archival interview. “It was volatile. It was spontaneous,” she revealed. “It was everything that made a relationship not boring. It was magical!” That said, their union was tainted by reports of O’Neal’s frequent womanizing and his substance abuse.
Fawcett broke up with O’Neal in 1997, after finding him in bed with actress Leslie Stefanson. The cut off all contact from each other until 2001, when O’Neal was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia. “Farrah came to me. We started over again, and this time we built it in a way that had foundation and trust,” the actor told ABC. “Farrah had her home here, and I had my home at the beach, and she would only come on the weekends. Our son was happy. And Farrah was mature. She didn’t get mad at me so easily. I had missed her.”
Fawcett and O’Neal stayed together until the former’s death in 2009.
3. She Was Romantically Linked to Business Tycoon Steve Bing In 1997
While there was no official confirmation from either party, Fawcett was romantically linked to tycoon Steve Bing in the late 1990s. According to Heightline, Bing considered buying Fawcett a mansion and asking her to marry him circa 1997, but nothing ever came of their relationship. Bing was linked to several glamorous women of the period, including Sharon Stone, Elizabeth Hurley, and Naomi Campbell.
Fawcett was open about her status as a sex symbol, and she discussed how her red swimsuit photo changed her life. “I guess the fact that it was a one-piece bathing suit, and I was happy — I wasn’t in a sexy pose like Brigitte Bardot,” she told ABC. “I mean, certainly it’s sexy because that’s my figure, and my nipples were showing. But, that’s me. I remember that a lot of women used to come up and ask me to sign the poster for their husbands, their boyfriends, and I thought, ‘I don’t know if I would do that.'”
4. She Dated Canadian Filmmaker James Orr Between 1997-98
Fawcett was in a relationship with Canadian filmmaker James Orr between 1997-98. She met Orr during the production of the Disney film Man of the House, which she acted in and he wrote and directed. The couple kept a relatively low profile until January 28, 1998, when Orr was arrested for physically assaulting Fawcett outside of his home.
Orr was arrested and found guilty on one count of misdemeanor battery. According to CBS, he was acquitted of a second battery count involving an incident on Aug. 28, 1997. He was charged with pushing Fawcett down, slamming her head to the driveway, and trying to choke her during a fight that started at a nearby restaurant.
Fawcett was not present during Orr’s sentencing in August 1998, but she did release a statement through her attorney Anthony Pellicano. “She truly hopes that her sense of conviction sends a positive message to all battered women,” he read. Orr was released and continues to write and direct films today, with his most recent project being 2017’s A Change f Heart.
5. Football Star Greg Lott Said That He Had an Affair With Fawcett During the Final Years of Her Life
Fawcett and Longhorn football star Greg Lott dated while they were both attending the University of Texas. Decades later, Lott said he reconnected with the actress and that they were having an affair up until her death. “We were blind, crazy, in love. Farrah was my best friend and my inspiration,” he told Daily Mail.
‘We fell in love with each other all those years ago and we never really stopped loving each other. Our lives took us in very different directions but, in the end, her heart always came home to me and Texas,” Lott continued. He also said that O’Neal kept him from saying goodbye to Fawcett in person. “I never got to say goodbye to Farrah. Ryan shut me out of her life,” he stated. “I would never have spoken out now except that some people are trying to rewrite history… All Ryan had to do was let me in to see her at Easter when she was dying.”
A spokesman for O’Neal issued a statement that denied Lott’s claims outright. Nevertheless, Lott stands by his story. “They want to control the Farrah myth and that revolves around the great love story between her and Ryan,” he said. “I just want to tell the truth about my relationship with her and people can make up their own minds.”
