linguistic:paraphrasing, quality:correction
Personal life

Cameron has been married five times. He was married to Sharon Williams from 1978 to 1984. A year after he and Williams divorced, Cameron married film producer Gale Anne Hurd, a close collaborator for his 1980s films. They divorced in 1989. Soon after separating from Hurd, Cameron met the director Kathryn Bigelow, whom he wed in 1989; they divorced in 1991. Cameron then began a relationship with Linda Hamilton, the lead actress in The Terminator series. Their daughter was born in 1993. Cameron married Hamilton in 1997. Amid speculation of an affair between Cameron and actress Suzy Amis, Cameron and Hamilton separated after two years of marriage, with Hamilton receiving a settlement of $50 million. He married Amis, his fifth wife, in 2000. They have one son and two daughters together.

Cameron applied for American citizenship in 2004, but withdrew his application after George W. Bush won the presidential election. Cameron resided in the United States, but after filming Avatar in New Zealand, Cameron bought a home and a farm there in 2012. He divided his time between Malibu, California and New Zealand until 2020, after which he sold his Malibu home and decided to live in New Zealand permanently. He said in August 2020: "I plan to make all my future films in New Zealand, and I see the country having an opportunity to demonstrate to the international film industry how to safely return to work. Doing so with Avatar will be a beacon that, when this is over, will attract more production to New Zealand and continue to stimulate the screen industry and the economy for years."

Cameron is an atheist; he formerly associated himself with agnosticism, a stance he said he had come to see as "cowardly atheism." Since 2011, he is vegan. Cameron met close friend Guillermo del Toro on the production of his 1993 film, Cronos. In 1998, del Toro's father Federico was kidnapped in Guadalajara and Cameron gave del Toro more than $1 million (equivalent to $1,744,000 in 2023) in cash to pay a ransom and have his father released. Cameron had been friends with Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet for over 25 years before the latter's death.

Cameron had a strong interest in visiting the space stations Mir and International Space Station (ISS). He spent the summer of 2000 in Moscow getting ready for a potential trip to space, and was offered an opportunity to go by NASA. However, the trip did not include a visit to the space station, so he declined the offer as it did not align with his terms. The shuttle flight he turned down was the tragic 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Cameron attended the memorial service for the victims of the disaster.

In June 2013, British artist Roger Dean filed a copyright complaint against Cameron, seeking damages of $50 million (equivalent to $64,500,000 in 2023). Relating to Avatar, Cameron was accused of "wilful and deliberate copying, dissemination and exploitation" of Dean's original images; the case was dismissed by US district judge Jesse Furman in 2014. In 2016, Premier Exhibitions, owner of many RMS Titanic artifacts, filed for bankruptcy. Cameron supported the UK's National Maritime Museum and National Museums Northern Ireland decision to bid for the artifacts, but they were acquired by an investment group before a formal bid took place.