Hollywood shines on many celeb BFFs : Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift, Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber, and Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore .
But there’s another celeb pairing worthy of all the #friendshipgoals and bracelets. This is the friendship of Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek !
They’ve been BFFs for over 20 years, yet this doesn’t get talked about enough.
It’s time to change that.
The women first became friends when Cruz moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting.
“I got here with a ticket to make a movie, I had my return ticket, so I was coming here for two months and I didn’t know anyone here,” Cruz said in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres.
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Hayek decided to help her out in a way that’s practically sainthood: she picked Penelope up from the airport.
She even took it one step further when she refused to let the Spain native stay in a hotel.
“She said, ‘You’re not going to a hotel, you’re coming to my house because this is hard at the beginning and you’re going to feel very lonely.”
“So — she took me to her house. That’s why now we’re like sisters,” Penelope said.
Cruz was even scared when she first reached L.A., so she slept in Hayek’s room to start.
“And in the middle of the night, she said I was holding her hand because I was afraid, I was dreaming, I don’t know,” the actress recalled.
They’ve become as thick as thieves since then — literally.
In 2006, they took their friendship on screen in the comedy western, Bandidas .
They played bank robbers in turn-of-the-century Mexico. Although the film isn’t that memorable, their friendship certainly is. They’ve now been friends for more than 20 years.
They’ve sung each other’s praises a lot during this time.
Like when Cruz spilled some hilariously sweet details about their friendship to Allure in 2014. “She’s one of my best friends. We call each other huevos [eggs],” she said of their nickname.
“It was because when we were working together, we didn’t have children yet, so we used to sleep much more than now,” she continued.
“So it was a way to call each other lazy,” Cruz confessed.
“We slept in the same bed so many times, and it was like she was always trying to wake me up and call me huevos.”
They had plenty more laughs in 2005 when Cruz pranked Hayek on ‘Punk’d.’
The Marvel actress fell victim to Ashton Kutcher’s pranks when he had the two women dine at LA restaurant Geisha House.
At one point, Cruz dragged Salma into the restrooms to see a huge blockage in one of the toilets.
But when they tried to flush the toilet, it overflowed and flooded the bathroom.
After returning to their table, a manager complained about their behavior and Salma was labeled as “disgusting” by fellow diners.
Penelope exploded into a fit of laughter when Ashton came over and revealed it was a prank.
Laughs aside, these two best friends share an unbreakable bond.
They’ve been each other’s support system as they navigated Hollywood. And there’s never any jealously when it comes to either of their amazing accomplishments. Since the start, Salma has taken Penelope under her wing.
So she was absolutely thrilled when Penélope and her husband Javier Bardem earned Oscar nominations in 2021.
They were nominated for Best Actress and Best Actor, respectively. Salma shouted her praise to the rooftops on Instagram with a sweet post.
“Congratulations to this beautiful, incredibly talented and super dynamic couple for their Oscar nominations for best actress and best actor,” she wrote.
How sweet is it that these two women are there for each other’s biggest moments?
They’re so lucky that they’ve found a sister for life in each other.
