Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn is finding more time and energy to devote to activist causes now that he’s single. Penn had been together with actress Robin Wright since 1989, just after a stormy divorce with superstar Madonna. The pair got married in 1996 after already having two children. After initially receiving a gorgeous engagement ring, the two exchanged wedding rings in a private ceremony in Los Angeles. “I just felt like I needed to dive in.” Wright had said about the couple’s roller-coaster relationship.
The pair briefly reunited to pray for their sixteen year-old son’s recovery after a near-fatal skateboarding incident. After that experience, Penn did some soul-searching and consulted composer-producer T Bone Burnett, the man responsible for Bob Dylan’s born-again revival in the seventies.
“I wanted to give back something to more to help struggling people, but I didn’t know how to best do it. I was for twenty years in a relationship with Robin and eighteen years with children. I didn’t have time to commit to anything–for real–in places like Iraq, except to denounce the war. But now I’m single, I can lend a hand.” Penn has focused nearly all his efforts these days towards helping the victims of the devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti. Penn affirms that his commitment to the Caribbean is a longterm one, saying that “there is no exit for me until there is more life than death.”