Penelope Cruz Shares The Emotional Reason Behind Her Sisterly Bond With Salma Hayek

While celebrity feuds might captivate the public, it's fair to say that celebrity friendships are an equal gossip column draw — with more positive, squee-inducing results. What would pop culture be without a Ben Affleck/Matt Damon buddy story or a Melissa-McCarthy-holding-a-sign-for-Mariska-Hargitay viral moment? But, when it comes to the commensurate platonic partnership between Hollywood A-listers, look no further than two of the entertainment industry's most celebrated actors: Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz. 

Indeed, Cruz and Hayek, who have been friends for well over two decades, per Hola!, have stuck with each other through thick and thin — and long before both rose to international fame, too. In a 2014 interview with Allure (via HuffPost), Cruz told the publication that they are, in so many words, soulmates. "She's one of my best friends," Cruz said at the time. "We call each other huevos [eggs]. It was because when we were working together, we didn't have children yet, so we used to sleep much more than now. So it was a way to call each other lazy." But how, exactly, was their relationship truly cemented? According to a recent interview with Cruz, it seems the pair secured their bond because of an unexpected move — one which ultimately made Hollywood history.

As People reported on January 7, during a recent appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Penelope Cruz recounted how she and Salma Hayek first truly forged their unshakeable connection so many years ago, when Cruz first landed in Los Angeles for a movie career move. According to Cruz, Hayek had offered to pick her up from the airport upon her arrival, even though Hayek and Cruz had never met in real life, only by way of the telephone. "I was coming here for two months and I didn't know anyone here," Cruz told host Ellen DeGeneres. "[S]he picked me up and said, 'You're not going to the hotel. You're coming to my house because this is hard at the beginning and you're going to feel very lonely.'"

Though Hayek's offer was as generous as it was unconventional, Cruz accepted it and, per Cruz, it was the right decision to make. "So, she took me to her house," she continued, "[and] that's why now we're like sisters." Though the Spanish actor disclosed that she was frightened of the big culture shift in moving to Los Angeles — enough so that she actually slept in Hayek's room at the very beginning — the solidarity Hayek offered was enough to keep her going. "In the middle of the night, she said I was holding her hand because I was afraid, I was dreaming, I don't know," Cruz recalled. True friendship, indeed!