Salma Hayek gathers Hollywood’s biggest names for star-studded NYC event

Salma Hayek is set to host a glittering, star-studded dinner in New York City in September with the Kering Foundation, alongside A-listers like Pamela Anderson and Dakota Johnson. The 59-year-old beauty will head the fifth annual Caring for Women Dinner at The Pool in NYC on September 10, in an effort to raise money to end gender-based violence. 

Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson, Olympian Simone Biles, Oscar-winner Benicio Del Toro, Argentine polo player Nacho Figueras, Fifty Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson and artist Lorna Simpson will all join Salma in co-hosting the event. 

The dinner will feature a live auction of luxury items from brands under the Kering umbrella, like Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, McQueen and Bottega Veneta. The 2025 dinner managed to raise more than $4.5 million for the cause.

In 2026, the funds raised will go towards four charities: Activating Change, Fondo Semillas, JBWS and The New York Women’s Foundation. 

“Salma and I created the Caring for Women Dinner to raise essential funds for organizations working to end gender-based violence and to mobilize a broader community around this critical mission at the heart of the Kering Foundation’s work,” said François-Henri Pinault, Chairman of Kering and the Kering Foundation, and Salma’s husband of 17 years, in a press release. 

“As we mark its fifth edition, the dinner stands as a powerful reminder of what this community can achieve when it comes together with purpose.”

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Salma and François-Henri have a strong focus on philanthropy thanks to their combined net worth of $7.2 billion. The Mexican star has been open about her romance with the billionaire, and asserted on the Armchair Expert podcast that she didn’t marry him for his money. 

Learn more about Salma’s family life below…

“In pictures, you cannot begin to guess the magic in him. He’s made me become a much better person and grow in such a good, healthy way,” she said.

“When I married him, everybody said, ‘Oh, it’s an arranged marriage. She married him for the money.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, whatever, bitch. Think what you want.’ Fifteen years together. And we are strong in love, and I don’t even get offended.”

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Salma and her husband first met in 2006, although they have kept the details of their meet-cute under wraps. The pair got engaged in 2007, and welcomed their daughter, Valentina, later that year. It took another two years to tie the knot, with Salma sharing that she had a “phobia” of marriage that her family helped her to snap out of.

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“It was like an intervention. I don’t think I ever told this story,” she recalled to Glamour. “They just took me to the court. My parents, my brother, they were all ganging up on me. I had a phobia of the marriage thing.”

“And then afterwards I said, ‘Oh, it’s okay. I don’t feel any different.’ And then a little bit later I said, ‘Okay, this is kind of exciting.’ And he’s like, ‘Can we have a party now?'” she added. Two months after their private Parisian wedding ceremony in 2009, they celebrated with their friends and family in Venice, Italy.