11 Famous LGBTQ+ Couples Who Have Been Together For 15+ Years
Plenty of us dream about finding the kind of love that lasts a lifetime, but sometimes it seems like finding your forever is impossible — especially in Hollywood.
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While a lot of celebrity couples don't last long, there are some who prove that true love does in fact exist.
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Here are 11 famous LGBTQ+ couples who've been together for a loooong time:
1.Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner first met in 1971. After watching J.T., Tomlin reached out to Wagner in hopes of collaborating with her. After finally meeting face-to face, they fell in love within minutes.
Tomlin told Variety, "A friend brought her to my hotel room, and I tell you, 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."
Tomlin had to leave for Chicago the next day, but she immediately flew back to New York so she could take Wagner on a date.
After dating for 42 years, they got married on December 31, 2013.
Their wedding was a simple ceremony at a friend's house.
Tomlin told People, "It was sweet. We didn’t have any rings, so I went into our jewelry and was digging out rings. I said, 'We have to have some kind of rings!'"
Total time together: 51 years!
2.RuPaul and Georges LeBar first met at NYC's Limelight nightclub in 1994. RuPaul first noticed LeBar — who was celebrating his birthday — on the dance floor because he was 3 inches taller than him.
On Oprah: Where Are They Now?, RuPaul said, "He was on the dance floor dancing like a maniaLec. I had to go over and say, 'What are you going through?'"
Within a week, the couple was jetsetting around Europe in Elton John's private plane.
They tied the knot in January 2017, the wedding coinciding with their 23rd anniversary as a couple.
RuPaul told the Guardian, "Conventional, that wasn’t my goal! Our goal was to use the system to work for us. I don’t give a fuck about marriage. What I did care about is that if anything happens to me or him, our assets are protected."
Rather than conform to convention, they're all about making their relationship work for them. They spend most of their time living apart. LeBar stays on their ranch in Wyoming, while RuPaul lives in Los Angeles.
RuPaul also credits the success of their long relationship to one factor — it's an open relationship.
He told the Guardian, "He and I are very respectful of one another. He and I know that on this planet where there are millions and millions of people, the person I have found on this planet that I like the very most is him. And I know that for him the person he loves the most on this planet is me. I know that; there’s no doubt in my mind. So if he needs to do something else somewhere else, I’m fine with that. He is respectful of me. He would never turn it into something that would make me feel uncomfortable, and I wouldn’t do that to him either."
Total time together: 28 years!
3.Elton John and David Furnish met at a dinner party in London in 1993. John had asked a friend to arrange the party so he could meet new people — and it was love at first sight.
He told Parade, "I was attracted to David immediately. He was very well dressed, very shy. The next night we had dinner. After it, we consummated our relationship. We fell in love very quickly."
They celebrated their union with a civil ceremony in 2005. Then, exactly nine years later, they renewed their vows with a wedding ceremony.
They have two children together — Elijah and Zachary.
Total time together: 29 years!
4.Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka first met through a mutual friend in 2004. At the time, Burtka was dating someone else, but Harris "was always around when he was around, hoping the stars would align."
Harris told Out magazine, "When we all hung out for the first time — I was invited by [our mutual friend] Kate to an American Idol viewing party — I just stammered around him. I couldn’t take my eyes off him."
Several months down the road, Burtka's relationship ended, and they finally went on their first date to see Taking Lives.
They both proposed — Burtka in 2007 and Harris in 2008. However, they kept their engagement a secret from the public until 2011.
In 2014, they got married in Perugia, Italy.
They have two kids together — Harper and Gideon.
Total time together: 18 years!
5.Wanda Sykes and Alex Sykes (née Niedbalski) first crossed paths on a ferry ride to Fire Island in New York in 2006. Wanda was immediately taken with Alex as she watched her talk to a baby.
She told the Guardian, "Something really said to me – like, audibly – 'Wow, that’s what you need, Wanda.'"
A few days later, Wanda complained about her love life to a friend, who suggested she use cheesy pickup lines instead of telling strangers about her kitchen remodel. Defiantly, Wanda described her remodel to the next person she met. That person introduced her to someone who could sell her granite countertops — Alex.
They wore matching dresses for their wedding on October 25, 2008.
They have two kids — Olivia and Lucas.
Total time together: 16 years!
6.Jim Parsons and Todd Spiewak met on a bar-hopping blind date in 2002. A few days later, they met up again for pizza and a movie.
Parsons told The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, "When we first got together, I remember lying in bed and closing my eyes but not being asleep. And that sensation of 'light'...I was like, 'I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but it’s sort of close to eternal.'"
In 2012, Parsons told the New York Times about their relationship, but he kept Spiewak's identity anonymous. However, during his Emmy acceptance speech a year later, he dedicated the award to his "favorite person on Earth, Todd Spiewak."
In 2017, they tied the knot at New York City's Rainbow Room.
Total time together: 20 years!
7.George Takei and Brad Takei (née Altman) first met when they joined the club Frontrunners in the early '80s. George was impressed by the "dashingly good-looking" and fastest runner in the group, so he made the first move.
They made their relationship official in 1985, but they kept it a secret because George worried that publicly coming out would essentially end his acting career.
He told Variety, "I was silent, and it was totally against my character... The one cause that was the most personal to me, I had to stay quiet on because I wanted my career."
After 20 years together, they finally went public with their relationship. In 2008, they got married at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles at the Democracy Forum venue.
George continued, "We truly are a team — me as the actor, writer, activist and Brad as the manager, scheduler and all-around essential guy. And we love being able to share our lives and our livelihood."
Total time together: 37 years!
8.Cynthia Nixon and Christine Marinoni first met in 2001 while they were both working with Alliance for Quality Education — which Marinoni founded — to advocate for smaller class sizes in New York City's public schools.
When Nixon separated from Danny Mozes in 2003, she and Marinoni grew closer. They began dating in 2004.
Their relationship drew unwanted media attention, so Nixon hired a publicist for the first time. His approach was to keep their relationship hidden. However, after she dropped him, her manager introduced her to a publicist who was openly gay herself — and she suggested that Nixon confirm the rumors of her relationship.
Nixon told the Advocate, "I was like, 'Really, we can just confirm?' So that’s what we did. It was so fantastic."
In 2012, they had a rooftop wedding in New York City.
They have one child together — Max.
Their family also includes Nixon's two children from a previous relationship, Samuel and Charles.
Total time together: 18 years!
9.Robin Roberts and Amber Laign met on a blind date in 2005.
In her memoir Everybody's Got Something, Roberts said, "I liked the fact that she had no idea who I was... She rarely followed sports, so she never saw me on ESPN...and her office mates at the time watched a different morning show."
However, their relationship remained a secret until Roberts publicly came out in a Facebook post eight years later.
Total time together: 17 years!
10.Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi first crossed paths at a party in 2000. However, their relationship took time to blossom.
They didn't get together until VH1’s Big in '04 Awards Show four years later. Their relationship gave de Rossi the confidence she needed to discuss her sexuality publicly for the first time a year later.
She told the Advocate, "I ran into Ellen at a photo shoot about a year ago, and she took my breath away. 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. And it was very hard for me to get her out of my mind after that. And then when I saw her again that night [at the VH1 awards show] we started talking and that’s that. We just were kind of supposed to be together."
They tied the knot in 2008.
Total time together: 18 years!
11.And finally, Tan France (née Safdar) and Rob France met on a dating site in the early '00s.
Their religious differences helped bring them together because Tan found it "easier to date somebody who had similarities to [him]" such as not drinking or smoking.
He told the New York Post, "We practice some of our religions’ practices. We don’t practice them all. We practice what works for us."
They got married in 2007 without an engagement.
On an episode of Queer Eye, Tan said, "It was just a case of, 'You know we’re going to get married one day, right?' We had just agreed that it was going to happen…and we arranged the date!"
Sadly, Tan's family skipped the wedding and didn't even mention his husband's name for 10 years. However, watching Queer Eye helped them embrace him and Rob.
On the podcast Getting Curious With Jonathan Van Ness, Tan said, "Our relationship has changed so much the last few months. Now they ask about Rob every time we Skype, and they'd literally never said his name before. For 10 years they've never used his name. So now, it's a very strange feeling with them over Skype. They've actually seen him on FaceTime, and that's a very strange process."
Tan and Rob have one child together — Ismail.
Total time together: 15 years as a married couple but together for longer!
Looking for more ways to get involved? Check out all of BuzzFeed's posts celebrating Pride 2022.
My Fake Boyfriend, a new LGBTQ+ rom-com from BuzzFeed Studios starring Keiynan Lonsdale, Dylan Sprouse, and Sarah Hyland, is out June 17 in the US — just in time for Pride! Sign up for Prime Video now so you're ready to watch.
Not in the US? My Fake Boyfriend is coming to Prime Video in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, LATAM, and Brazil on June 10, and all other territories on June 24.
