Paul Simon Recalls 'Doomed Marriage' With Carrie Fisher In New Documentary

Singer-songwriter Paul Simon recalled his “whirlwind” marital life with former wife and actress Carrie Fisher. On March 17, the first part of the singer’s documentary film In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon was released, followed by the second part on March 24. The documentary consisted of some old interviews featuring the 82-year-old where he recalled the lows of his brief marriage to Carrie Fisher, who by then attained much stardom due to the popularity surrounding the 1977 film Star Wars. Paul Simon noted some fundamental differences with his ex-partner back at that time which led to “exhaustion” and finally divorce.

In one of the interviews, Paul Simon revealed that he got married to Carrie Fisher during the middle of a reunion tour with singer Art Garfunkel. Noting Fisher’s sudden brush with fame for her role as Princess Leia in Star Wars, Simon said that although she was good at handling press meets and “things like that”, he, on the other hand, was not acquainted with the media-related ventures. “Carrie was much more show business-oriented,” he said.

“I went along with that — that’s the world that she grew up with; she was used to it. 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,” shared Paul Simon.

After the divorce between Paul Simon and Carrie Fisher, the former in another interview, as shown in the documentary, disclosed that he was worn out by the time they parted ways. “I mean, what was I thinking? Certainly not thinking about life, you know, that you actually like have to stop,” he said, admitting that marriage was a “hard thing to do”.

“You have to concentrate on — not everything can happen at once, not everything is a media event. All types of mistakes on top of mistakes on top of mistakes,” continued Paul Simon. The Sound Of Silence singer confessed that he was left drained out from all the “emotional upheaval” happening in his life.

Paul Simon and Carrie Fisher met in the late 1970s when the latter was shooting for Star Wars. The couple who married on August 1983, got divorced by July 1984. In 1992, Simon got hitched to Grammy-winning singer Edie Brickell. Meanwhile, Fisher breathed her last in 2016 after suffering a heart attack. She was 60.