Unbothered '80s Icon Joan Collins Has A Sizeable Age Gap With Her Husband

Joan Collins' husband, Percy Gibson, is a whopping 32 years younger than her, but she's not fazed by that in the slightest. In fact, in addition to poking fun at the age gap on occasion, she's also said it simply doesn't factor into their relationship (and given they've been together for over two decades, we believe that!). 

Collins and Gibson started seeing each other in early 2000, when she was in her late 60s and he in his mid-30s, and they announced their engagement in December 2001. Understandably, the fact that there were three decades between them raised eyebrows, but from the get-go, Collins made it clear she and her partner weren't bothered by it. Speaking to Hello!, she pointed out, "I've always felt age shouldn't be a chronological issue but more a question of physicality and attitude. ... I know that I look and act a lot younger than I am." She concluded with the parting shot, "The problem, it seems to me, is with those people who can't accept it." Slow clap. 

Unfortunately for Collins and Gibson, that didn't quite shut down the haters, and she has had to address it several more times over the years. That said, she's had a good sense of humor about it. For one, after marrying Gibson in February 2002, she poked fun at the likelihood of one of them outliving the other. "If he dies, he dies," she was quoted by Hello! as saying. Many years later, in a 2016 appearance on "Loose Women," she also joked about her switcheroo from her first marriage, which also had an extensive age gap, albeit the other way around. "I got married when I was 18 and he was 33, and then the second one, I was 27 and he was 30, and then it's gradually gone ... down," she laughed. 

A 32-year age gap may sound shocking to some, but the truth of the matter is that Joan Collins' marriage to Percy Gibson has been her longest. She joked about that during a 2015 appearance on "Loose Women," quipping, "It is my longest marriage ... most of them were so short!" Granted, Collins has also joked that despite her long list of ex-husbands (she has four), she still wasn't the queen of multiple marriages in Hollywood. That's an honor reserved for Elizabeth Taylor, and speaking on "The Jonathan Ross Show," she said the "Cleopatra" star didn't let her forget it. "When I got my fourth divorce, she sent me a note and said, 'I'm still ahead by three!'" Collins recalled. 

As for what has made Collins' fifth marriage so much more successful than any of her previous ones, the "Dynasty" star has regularly spoken about spending as much time together as possible. "We're together all the time, because you know, he works at home, and I work at home, but we have our space (and separate bathrooms)," she said on "Loose Women" in 2015. She reiterated that in the 2016 interview, explaining, "I think it's very important not to be separated too much, I really do. I think a week is maximum, and I've been on a lot of locations and a lot of tours, and I've seen what happens with different married people.'"

Back to the age factor, Collins has long maintained that because they both have a lot of energy, it's not a problem for them. What's more, she said much of the chatter has died down in the U.K. "They don't do it in England anymore because everybody knows how happy we are together," she told People in 2023. Love it for them!