The Longest LGBTQ+ Relationships in Hollywood
While many of us might think Hollywood is filled with breakups and divorces, so many couples have defied these Hollywood odds. From Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos, who look as in love as ever on our TV screens every day, to Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman, who take any opportunity to pack on some PDA, so many couples have proved Hollywood love is real and here to stay.
Among these Hollywood-defying couples, of course, are some LGBTQ+ couples who are out, proud and so obsessed with each other. Among them are some of our favorites like Jodie Foster and Alexandra Hedison, Cynthia Nixon and Christine Marinoni, Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka and Colman and Raul Domingo.
“Falling in love with my wife was one of the great delights and surprises of my life,” Nixon once told The Advocate about falling for her wife of twelve years. “It didn’t seem like I became a whole new person, or like some door had been unlocked.”
We’re taking a look at their incredible love stories. From love stories that blossomed from friendships, or blind dates that ended really, really well, check out all our favorite Hollywood LGBTQ+ love stories below!
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Raul & Colman Domingo
Rustin star Colman Domingo made us swoon when he shared the story of how he met his husband, Raúl Domingo. The pair have been married since 2014.
Sharing their love story at The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in 2022, the Oscar-nominated actor said they saw each other for the first time after a chance encounter outside of Walgreens.
“A few days later, I’m on Craigslist trying to buy a used computer to help with my writing. I went to the home screen and you know, they have ‘missed connections’ things like ads, so I would read them because I’m a romantic. I go to the second page of missed connections and it said, ‘Saw you outside of Walgreens, Berkeley,’” Domingo remembered, per Harper’s Bazaar.
After meeting up right after, they’ve been inseparable ever since.
Wanda & Alex Sykes
Wanda Sykes and her wife Alex met in 2006 on a ferry ride to Fire Island, New York, and it was love at first sight. The couple married in 2008, aka the same year the comedian came out publicly at a Prop 8 rally in California to support marriage equality.
But their greatest joy together has been their fraternal twins Olivia and Lucas, who were born in 2009. “I was like, oh, my God, what did we do?” Wanda joked to Vulture in 2016. “At one time I was contemplating taking one back. I was like, can we return one? I mean really, oh my gosh. I was thinking we can’t do this, we’re going to have to take one back.”
Cynthia Nixon & Christine Marinoni
Cynthia Nixon and Christine Marinoni, who first met in 2001 while advocating for better public schools, are one of our favorite LGBTQ+ love stories out there.
“When we started seeing each other, Christine kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for me to panic about what this would mean — to my career or to myself — as if somehow I just hadn’t noticed that she was a woman,” Nixon told the Radio Times, per People. “And then she met my mother and that was when she stopped worrying about it.”
The pair got engaged in 2009 and finally tied the knot in 2012. On Feb. 7, 2011, Nixon and Marinoni welcomed their son, Max.
Neil Patrick Harris & David Burtka
Neil Patrick Harris has been gushing over his husband David Burtka since they met in passing in 2004.
“There’s something kinetic about him and his being,” the How I Met Your Mother star told Out Magazine in 2012. “He’s classically sexy, yet he’s very much a boy in his energy. It’s a great dynamic. When I see people who are equally attractive, they tend to seem more quiet and kind of Marlboro Man-y, and David’s the antithesis of that. He’s more like Tigger. I’m, in turn, very introspective — the thinker, rather than the doer. I tend to weigh options before making decisions, and David is the polar opposite of that. We’re hyper similar and also incredibly opposite.”
Harris and Burtka, who went public with their relationship in 2007, welcomed twins Harper Grace and Gideon Scott via surrogate in 2010. A year later, in 2011, they got engaged and got married in a private ceremony in Italy in 2014.
Lily Tomlin & Jane Wagner
Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner might take the cake for the longest relationship on this list. The two were together for almost 42 years before getting married during an intimate ceremony on New Year’s Eve in 2013.
Speaking of how they met back in the 70s, Tomlin made us all believe in love. “A friend brought her to my hotel room,” Tomlin told Variety. “In two minutes, I fell in love with her. She had on hot pants, stretchy boots that went up to her knee, and a little backpack. I don’t know what it was, but I was in love.”
Ellen DeGeneres & Portia de Rossi
Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi’s love story took a while to unfold. They met in 2000 when de Rossi was still in the closet — but there was immediate chemistry. It took until 2004 when they reconnected at a photo shoot to realize this was true love.
“She took my breath away,” de Rossi told The Advocate in 2005. “That had never happened to me in my life, where I saw somebody and [experienced] all of those things you hear about in songs and read about in poetry. My knees were weak. It was amazing.”
The couple has been married since 2008.
Elton John & David Furnish
After meeting at a mutual friend’s dinner party in 1993, Sir Elton John and David Furnish have been almost inseparable. “I knew he was the one because he is not afraid of me,” John was told Parade. “He always tells me exactly what he thinks.”
In 2005, John proposed to Furnish and, nine years later, they got married in a small ceremony at their Windsor estate. Before their marriage, they also become parents, welcoming their first son Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John in 2010 and their second Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John in 2013.
In a candid interview in 2019, they opened up about one of the many secrets to their marriage.
“Every Saturday we gave each other an anniversary card, because we met on a Saturday,” Furnish told R&B artist 6LACK. “So, we wrote down, in like a little card that you put next to the bed, ‘Happy Anniversary.’ And you write about the week that’s passed and the week that’s coming, and you connect and you tell each other you love each other.”
“Every Saturday, without fail, in the last 25 years, we’ve sent each other a card or a fax,” John added. How romantic!
Robin Roberts & Amber Laign
Amber Laign and Robin Roberts’ love story has endured for over 19 years, but it wasn’t until 2013 that the Good Morning America anchor came out publicly as a lesbian after a health battle with a rare blood disorder when she thanked her girlfriend on Facebook for sticking by her.
In late 2022, the two finally got engaged. “We took the calamari rings and we slapped them on each other’s fingers and we just proposed to one another,” Roberts said, per ABC. “Now looking back, it was pretty fitting for us to not have a down on one knee [proposal] and one person doing it … it was just us hanging out in our little hole-in-the-wall Mexican spot and putting calamari rings on each other and saying, ‘Let’s go. Let’s do it.’”
In Sept. 2023, they tied the knot. “An intimate, magical wedding ceremony in our backyard followed by a joyous reception…ohhhh the dancing!!” Roberts wrote on Instagram. “We are immensely grateful to all for making it a day and a night to remember. Honeymoon here we come!”
Brad & George Takei
George Takei and her husband Brad met in the most unexpected of ways back in the ’80s: a runners club, People reports. “He was the best runner in the club,” the Star Trek star told Oprah Winfrey on Oprah: Where Are They Now? “And also great-looking. So I went up to him and I asked him to train me for my first marathon. Before long, we became partners.”
The couple, who publicly announced their relationship in 2005, tied the knot in 2008 in a Buddhist ceremony in downtown Los Angeles.
Stephanie Allynne & Tig Notaro
Tig Notaro’s love story with Stephanie Allynne proves love comes knocking when you least expect it.
After losing her mother and battling a rare infection and breast cancer, Notaro connected with Allynne while working on In a World in 2013.
“Everything about her felt right. I knew I liked her, I knew I cared about her and that sent me into an identity crisis spiral,” Allynne explained to People about falling in love with Notaro after previously dating men.
“I felt the need to label myself, was I gay? Was I bi? Was I still straight? Was I ever straight? etc. It took me six months to realize those labels were ridiculous,” she concluded. “Once I was able to own my true feelings it was all easy and beautiful. I now don’t believe in the labels.”
The couple married in 2015 and welcomed twins, Max and Finn, via surrogate in 2016.
Justin Mikita & Jesse Tyler Ferguson
After meeting in a gym of all places, Justin Mikita and Jesse Tyler Ferguson began their love story. And while they took a bit to start (Mikita was dating someone else at the time), their first impressions of each other were quite indescribable.
“I was taken by how handsome he was and how sweet,” he told Variety. “I started asking questions about him, and I think he was sort of thrown off by that and ran away from me.”
Months later, they reconnected and began dating. In 2012, the Modern Family star popped the question and, a year later, they became husbands in a ceremony in New York City.
In July 2020, they became parents as they welcomed their first child, Beckett Mercer. Two years later, they announced the birth of their second child, Sullivan Louis.
Catherine Shepherd & Brandi Carlile
Catherine Shepherd and Brandi Carlile met back in 2009 and got engaged three years later in June 2012. Three months after that, they tied the knot.
“We met through our activism and interest in charity. We communicated for about a year, and the entire time I thought I was talking to somebody who was 65. It was an interesting way to fall in love,” Carlile said to Rolling Stone about when they first started talking.
Lance Bass & Michael Turchin
Lance Bass and Michael Turchin is another couple who went from friends to family. Turchin and Bass first met at a friend’s party in 2011 and instantly connected.
“We just started talking and began hanging out as friends,” Turchin told People.
“I was attracted to him and wanted things to go further, but I was convinced he wasn’t into me,” Bass said of their connection at first. “So I focused on becoming such good friends that I wouldn’t be able to look at him in any other way.”
Soon after, however, the two took the next step.
In 2013, the two got married and, a year later, they tied the knot at the Park Plaza Hotel in L.A. in a televised ceremony special, Lance Loves Michael: The Lance Bass Wedding.
In 2021, the couple welcomed via surrogate their twins, Violet Betty and Alexander James.
“We always knew we wanted at least two kids,” Bass told People after becoming a dad. “It would be nice to have a boy and a girl just to feel the experiences of raising both or whatever they end up being. I think it’s just amazing that science has gotten this far where we can make the healthiest human beings ever.
Jodie Foster & Alexandra Hedison
Jodie Foster has kept her sweet relationship with photographer Alexandra Hedison quite private over the years. The pair met in 2013 and were married a year later.
These two often share some sweet memories on Instagram. In November 2023, Hedison shared a candid picture of Foster with a lit-up birthday cake. “Loving you is easy as cake,” the filmmaker wrote. “Happy birthday, beautiful ??.”
Jim Parsons & Todd Spiewak
Jim Parsons and Todd Spiewak first met during a blind date in 2002 but despite connecting instantly, they kept their romance under wraps until The Big Bang Theory star came out ten years later in 2012.
“We went to this gay bar for this birthday party together and that’s where it was like, ‘Oh, we’re going to do this again,'” Parsons remembered of his first date on Late Night with Seth Meyers in 2022.
In 2017, Parsons and Spiewak got married at the Rainbow Room in New York City. Years later, they’re still as going strong as ever!
Melissa Etheridge & Linda Wallem
Some of the strongest marriages in Hollywood happen when you marry your best friend. That’s what happened to Melissa Etheridge and writer Linda Wallem, whose friendship turned into a marriage.
After a decade of being BFFs, Wallem moved into Etheridge’s household while she was going through a brutal divorce with actress Tammy Lynn Michaels. Things turned romantic about six months into the move and, by 2010, they knew it was the real deal.
“One day, I realized, ‘Oh my gosh. She is my partner. She’s doing everything you would want in a partner. Why not?’ But I fell in love with her in a very different way,” Etheridge told Variety.
The couple has been married since 2014.
