Keshia Knight Pulliam looks back on falling for husband while playing siblings in a Lifetime movie

Keshia Knight Pulliam looks back on falling for husband while playing siblings in a Lifetime movie
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Keshia Knight Pulliam and her husband, Brad James, didn't have a typical meet-cute.

The Cosby Show and Married at First Sight: Afterparty star, 44, recalled in a recent interview with PEOPLE how she and James, 42, had been acquainted for some time but didn't fall for each other until they worked together as screen siblings in the 2019 Lifetime movie Pride and Prejudice: Atlanta.

"We were actually playing brother and sister," Knight Pulliam said. "Our paths had crossed many times before but this was the first time we saw each other."

While they were still friends, Knight Pulliam brought James to her family's Thanksgiving celebration. "He came to my brother's house with all my people and met everybody, and we were literally just castmates at the time. Five or so years later, and he's my husband, and we've made a whole other human being."

Brad James and Keshia Knight Pulliam
Brad James and Keshia Knight Pulliam

Paras Griffin/Getty Images Brad James and Keshia Knight Pulliam

The couple married in October 2021 and now live on a farm outside Atlanta with their son, Knight, who was born earlier this year, and Knight Pulliam's 5-year-old daughter, Ella, from a previous marriage to Ed Hartwell. "I have been in the business my entire life, spanning over 40 years," Knight Pulliam told the outlet, "but I've also had my own private life away from it, and I appreciate that."

With time off due to the Hollywood actors' strike — she hopes the stalemate ends in "a fair deal" — Knight Pulliam is focused on family time, non-scripted shows like Married at First Sight, and a recent PSA she starred in for the Breast Cancer Research Fund.

"We live on a farm so my husband built me a greenhouse," she said, "and we're in the process of planting, taking care of chickens and goats and really just enjoying time as a family."

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