20 of the longest LGBTQ+ relationships in Hollywood

In the pre-Obergefell times, actors, musicians, and TV personalities often risked their careers by coming out as LGBTQ+, hiding their longtime same-sex partners to protect them from public scrutiny.

But in the end, love perseveres.

As we mark Pride month, these 20 famous LGBTQ+ couples show how even under changing societal norms and in the limelight of fame, love always wins.

Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner

In the early ’70s, actress Tomlin reached out to writer Wagner to get help with a character she was playing. Their meeting was love at first sight, Tomlin said. 

“A friend brought her to my hotel room, and I tell you, in two minutes, I fell in love with her,” Tomlin told Variety in 2020. “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.”

After their meeting, Tomlin flew to Chicago but then immediately flew back to New York to go on a date with Wagner. Over the next few decades, the two created a romantic and professional partnership that resulted in some of the best comedies of the ’80s and ’90s, per Variety. 

It wasn’t until 2013 that the pair tied the knot.

George Takei and Brad Altman

“Star Trek” actor Takei joined a running group in the ’80s and met a fellow member, Brad Altman. Together, they trained for 5ks and 10ks before eventually becoming romantically involved, Variety reported. They kept their relationship a secret for 18 years before Takei came out publicly in 2005. In 2008, the couple married.

“We truly are a team — me as the actor, writer, activist and Brad as the manager, scheduler and all-around essential guy,” Takei told Variety in 2020. “And we love being able to share our lives and our livelihood.”

Elton John and David Furnish

In 1993, John was sober for the first time in a decade, and he looked for a new social circle to support his new lifestyle, per Biography.com. His friend brought Furnish, a Canadian filmmaker, to dinner and the two felt an instant connection. 

In 2005, the couple said “I do” in a civil partnership. They made it an official marriage in 2014 when same-sex marriage was legalized in England. Today, they have two children. 

“Every Saturday for 16 years, we’ve sent each other a card,” John told Parade magazine in 2016. “No matter where we are in the world, to say how much we love each other.”

RuPaul and Georges LeBar

In 1994, RuPaul met Georges LeBar, a rancher in Wyoming, on the dance floor of New York’s famous nightclub, the Limelight. In 2017, the couple said “I do” on the anniversary of their dance-floor “meet-cute,” Marie Claire reported. 

“He works the ranch, I work Hollywood, and we meet up in fabulous places,” RuPaul told Entertainment Tonight in 2017. “You know, he needs breaks from time to time because it’s a very different life. So, we plan little getaways once a month, you know? New York or Maui or San Francisco or Vegas. We do that.”

The two married in 2017.

Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi

DeGeneres and De Rossi met in 2004 and instantly felt a connection, but De Rossi wasn’t out to the public yet: The actress told Oprah in 2012 that she hadn’t been ready “to date the most famous lesbian in the world.”

In 2005, she spoke to The Advocate about coming out, and in 2008, the couple married.

“Portia and I constantly say to each other, ‘We are so lucky.’ Sometimes it’s lying in bed at night before I go to sleep, and I just say thank you to whatever, whoever is out there,” DeGeneres told People magazine in 2016.

Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka

When they met on a street corner in New York City in 2004, Harris thought Burtka was straight but was completely enamored by him. Slowly, they grew closer at other social gatherings. 

“I initially fell for David harder than he fell for me,” Harris told Out magazine in 2012. “I was in love with him before he was comfortable saying it, and I think that speaks to our past experiences. I remember saying, ‘I think I love you,’ and he was like, ‘That’s really nice,’ which is not necessarily what you want to hear.”

Still, Burtka — who is also an actor — was the one who proposed first on the same street corner where they met, Out magazine reported. They married in 2014 and now have twins together.

Cynthia Nixon and Christine Marinoni

Nixon and Marinoni met while advocating for state schools in 2004, a year after Nixon broke it off with her high school sweetheart, the Radio Times reported.

“I had never dated a woman before or even kissed a woman or anything, and so 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. And then she met my mother and that was when she stopped worrying about it,” Nixon told the Radio Times in 2017.

The two married in 2012 and have one child together, a son named Max. (Nixon also has two children from a previous relationship.)

Wanda Sykes and Alex Niedbalski

In 2006, Sykes was on a ferry to Fire Island, an island off Long Island, New York, when she saw a woman who instantly caught her attention, The Guardian reported. By sheer coincidence, the comedian was later introduced to the woman, Alex Niedbalski. The two began dating and married in 2008. 

Sykes came out to the public the same year she tied the knot with Niedbalski. Previously Sykes was married to Dave Hall, a music producer, whom she often joked about hating. 

“It just speaks to being in a bad relationship with my husband,” Sykes told New York Times Magazine in 2018. “I was being honest. I wanted to get away. Like: ‘God, there’s his stupid face, and he’s chewing. Ugh, does he have to breathe? Make him stop breathing.’ Now I’m in a great relationship, and I’m happy, so my wife’s chewing doesn’t annoy me.”

They have twins together.

Tan France and Rob France

Tan met his future husband, Rob France, on a dating app over a decade ago. Rob is an illustrator and a Mormon from Wyoming, while Tan is a Muslim from England. Together, they bonded over their religious backgrounds.

“It made it easier to date somebody who had similarities to me. I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t smoke,” France told the New York Post in 2018. “We practice some of our religions’ practices. We don’t practice them all. We practice what works for us.”

The two wed in 2007. They have two sons.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Justin Mikita

In 2009, Mikita, a lawyer, stopped Ferguson in the Equinox locker room to ask him about his new role on the ABC sitcom “Modern Family.” A few months later, the pair started dating, and in 2013, they got married.

They welcomed their first child together in July 2020, and their second in November 2022.

Ferguson told BI in 2023 that fatherhood “did not always feel like an option for me, but it was something I desired.”

“I didn’t know I desired it as much as I did until I met my husband, Justin,” he added.

Matt Bomer and Simon Halls

In 2012, actor Bomer came out during an acceptance speech, revealing he had three sons with publicist Simon Halls. In 2014, he dropped another bombshell, telling the public that he and Halls had actually been married since 2011. Since their relationship is mostly private, it’s unclear exactly how or when they met, but their twins were born in 2008.

“Well, we have three kids right now, so you’ve got to fit the romance in when you can,” Bomer told People magazine in 2016. “[My grandparents] just celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary, so I always look to them and I see how every day they express their love for each other and I try to follow. They’ve set a pretty good model for me to follow.”

Michael Kors and Lance LePere

Michael Kors and Lance LePere were introduced in 1990 when LePere was interning for Kors’ company, CBS News reported. The pair married in Southampton in August 2011, shortly after the New York State Assembly legalized same-sex marriage in June of that year.

“Lance and I are very excited to finally be able to have the opportunity to marry in our home state after many years together,” Kors told People.

“To marry someone as wonderful and special to me as Lance barefoot on a glorious beach is more than I could have dreamed of,” Kors told Womens Wear Daily at the wedding.

Brandi Carlile and Catherine Shepherd

A year before Brandi Carlile met her now-wife Catherine Shepherd in person, the two connected on the phone. Shepherd had been working for Paul McCartney’s charity and was looking to donate Beatles memorabilia to Carlile’s Fight the Fear campaign.

A year later, they met in person and hit it off.

“It was shocking, to say the least,” Carlile told People in 2021. “Every time I talked to her over the phone, I thought I was talking to somebody who was like 65 years old…. We met backstage in New York, and we were both like 27.”

Two years later, in 2012, they got married. Their daughters Evangeline Ruth and Elijah were born in 2014 and 2018.

Robin Roberts and Amber Laign

The “Good Morning America” anchor met Laign, a massage therapist and businesswoman, in 2005 after they were set up on a blind date by mutual friends. Since then, the pair have largely kept their relationship out of the spotlight. 

Roberts first publicly acknowledged both her sexuality and Laign in 2013, when she thanked her “longtime girlfriend Amber” in a Facebook post celebrating her recovery from a life-saving bone-marrow transplant.

In January 2023, a year after sharing that Laign had been battling breast cancer — the same disease Roberts herself was diagnosed with in 2007 — Roberts shared her plans to get married within the year.

“I’m hesitating because I haven’t said it out loud yet … I’m saying ‘yes’ to marriage,” Roberts said.

Lance Bass and Michael Turchin

After meeting in 2011 at a party in Palm Springs, California, former *NSYNC member Lance Bass connected with artist Michael Turchin on Facebook and struck up a friendship. At first, Turchin kept him in the friend zone.

“I am so shy and never would have made the first move,” Turchin told People. “I was thinking, ‘This is Lance Bass. I grew up watching him on TV and listening to his music.’ That just added a whole other layer of intimidation.” 

The two became the first same-sex couple to be married on American television in 2015 when “Lance Loves Michael: The Lance Bass Wedding Special” aired on E!.

The couple celebrated their 10th anniversary in 2021 by getting each other a new pair of rings. “Every time I look at my hand, I just get reminded of the 10 blissful years,” Bass told People.

The couple has twins, born in 2021.

Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black

Daley met the Oscar-winning screenwriter shortly after winning his first Olympic medal at the 2012 London Olympics, when the two connected at a dinner party.

In 2015, the couple announced their engagement through a newspaper blurb. In an interview, the couple recalled their engagement when they proposed to each other.

“I had the ring box in my underwear, and when he came out of the bathroom, I just went down on my knee and proposed,” Daley told Out Magazine. “Then he ran off to the bathroom to get his rings, and he had this whole speech prepared, but he’s a writer so his was quite extravagant. But looking back, all I can remember is being completely overwhelmed.”

The couple married in 2017 and, in June 2018, became parents for the first time.

They have two sons together, Robert “Robbie” Ray and Phoenix Rose.

Cheyenne Jackson and Jason Landau

The “Glee” actor met Landau at a 12-step group meeting and they announced their engagement in February 2014. The two got married later that year and marked their 10-year anniversary in 2024.

“We’ve both been through a lot in our lives,” Jackson told People in 2014. “We got sober together. Now we sing and we dance together. It blows my mind.”

The two welcomed twins Ethan and Willow in October 2016.

Melissa Etheridge and Linda Wallem

The “I’m the Only One” singer and Wallem, a showrunner and producer of shows like “That ’70s Show,” met in the early 2000s when Etheridge auditioned to play a record store owner in a “That ’70s Show” spin-off called “That ’80s Show,” which was never filmed.

Staying friends for over 10 years, the two reconnected after the singer separated her former partner, Tammy Lynn Michaels, in 2010.

In 2014, Etheridge and Wallem tied the knot in California, just days after their shared birthday.

“She was my best friend for nine years, so it’s an interesting relationship. I’ve never been friends with someone for that long and then entered into a romantic relationship,” Etheridge told the West Michigan magazine Revue in 2011. “She’s my friend and it’s really pretty amazing. I’m happier than I’ve ever, ever been.”

Colman Domingo and Raúl Domingo

The “Sing Sing” actor and his husband, Raúl Domingo, crossed paths at a Walgreens parking lot in 2005, although the two didn’t talk. A few days later, Colman came across a Missed Connections ad on Craigslist where Raúl was looking to reconnect with Colman after their brief interaction. Two days later, the two went out.

“I told him, ‘I think you’re about to change my life and I love you,'” Colman told Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” in 2022. “And we’ve been together ever since.”

The two tied the knot in 2014.

Jim Parsons and Todd Spiewak

Parsons, who in 2018 was the highest-paid TV actor thanks to his role as Sheldon in “The Big Bang Theory,” as reported by Forbes, met his graphic designer husband in a November 2002 blind date set up by mutual friends.

“I’ll never forget that late fall into the holidays when we spent so much time together just falling more in love,” Parsons told People in 2022. “Every time there’s that smell when the air gets cold in New York, it always reminds me.”

Ten years later, the two made their relationship public. They married five years after that, in 2017.

In 2015, they co-founded That’s Wonderful Productions, a production company. Since then, the two have been credited as executive producers on “Young Sheldon.”

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