Cameron Diaz on Why She Waited Until She Was 42 to Get Married: 'I Just Hadn't Met My Husband'

Cameron Diaz said she never met someone who was truly her equal partner until Benji Madden

Cameron Diaz was never in a rush to say “I do.”

The actress married Good Charlotte singer Benji Madden, 38, in 2015 when she was 42. She explained that it wasn’t until meeting him that she felt she had found someone she could spend the rest of her life with.

“I think it’s a matter of I just hadn’t met my husband,” Diaz, 44, said during a Gwyneth Paltrow-moderated panel at the “In Goop Health” wellness summit in Culver City, California on Saturday. “I had boyfriends before, and there’s a really, really distinct difference between husbands and boyfriends.”

Diaz said what made Madden different is that he was the first man she felt was her true partner.

“He’s just my partner in life, in everything.” she said. “I’ve never had anyone who supported me so much and gave me so much courage to be myself and to really explore myself. My husband has been able to show me what it’s like to […] be an equal. And I’ve learned so much from him. I look at him every day and he inspires me. I feel so lucky.”

The Longevity Book author said she and Madden “are totally two peas in a pod. We’re both just weird enough for each other. He’s my perfect little weirdo and I’m his perfect little weirdo.”

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Diaz also spoke about how exercise and transcendental meditation help her to live a balanced life.

“Working out is really important, especially when I have a full day,” she said. “It’s the first thing I want to do — I want to start off get the endorphins going and get a sweat on. That always picks me up and clears my mind and pushes me out the door. And then I do TM.”

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Diaz said since she started doing transcendental meditation five years ago, it “changed my life completely.”

“It allowed space, grounded me,” she said. “It’s something you have to do consistently to really reap the benefits of it. When I’m doing TM consistently, at least one meditation a day — I try to get two in — everything’s easier. Before I meditate, I’m like a broken glass. As soon as I meditate it’s whole again. All the pieces come back in, and I can see clearly, think clearly, and be grounded and energized.”