Lin-Manuel Miranda and His Wife Vanessa Nadal Have the Most Relatable Love Story

From Good Housekeeping

• Hamilton star and creator Lin-Manuel Miranda married his wife, Vanessa Nadal, in 2010.

• Together, the couple has two sons, Sebastian and Francisco.

• Lin-Manuel is nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy at the 2021 Golden Globes.

There's no denying that Lin-Manuel Miranda is a major force in the entertainment world.

His work in Broadway masterpieces Hamilton and In the Heights and the Disney movie Moana has led to Tonys, Grammys, and even a Pulitzer. But his incredible talent aside, Lin-Manuel will tell you that it's his wife,Vanessa Nadal, that keeps him focused. While accepting his Best Original Score Tony for Hamilton in 2016, Lin-Manuel gushed via a sonnet, "My wife’s the reason anything gets done. She nudges me towards promise by degrees. She is a perfect symphony of one. Our son is her most beautiful reprise ..."

It's clear Lin-Manuel is in awe of his leading lady — and for good reason. The New York Times reports that Vanessa attended M.I.T. for a degree in chemical engineering and went on to work as a scientist for Johnson & Johnson. What's more, she decided to continue her education and attend Fordham Law School, where she is currently an adjunct professor, according to her LinkedIn.

But well before any of that, Lin-Manuel was already smitten with Vanessa when he first saw her at Hunter College High School. She was a sophomore and he was a senior, but he couldn't find the courage to talk to her.

“She was gorgeous and I’m famously bad at talking to women I find attractive,” Lin-Manuel told NYT. “I have a total lack of game.”

The story goes that the two crossed paths again years later when the Hamilton star found her Facebook profile in the summer of 2005. At the time, Lin-Manuel was a member of the hip-hop improv troupe Freestyle Love Supreme, and he saw that Vanessa had listed hip-hop and salsa as interests on her profile.

Using their shared interests as his way in, Lin-Manuel took a leap of faith and invited her to his next Freestyle Love Supreme show ... and she showed up. Alas, it wasn't love at first sight. In fact, Vanessa told the outlet that Lin-Manuel "didn't talk to me the whole night." Weeks later though, he invited her to another show.

"When he came onstage, I thought, I really like this guy,” Vanessa recalled. “He was up there free-styling and weaving rhymes together. It’s pretty impressive. He’s really, really smart.”

After his show, she went out with his friends and a group of artists. After everyone left, Lin-Manuel made his big move. “I very coolly said, 'All right, you’re going to come over to my house tonight, and we’re going to play Grand Theft Auto and watch the Jay-Z movie and listen to Marc Anthony.'"

From there, the relationship blossomed and the two grew fonder and fonder of one another. In 2010, Vanessa and Lin-Manuel tied the knot in a beautiful wedding at the Belvedere Mansion in Staatsburg, New York, People reports. During the event, Lin-Manuel surprised Vanessa with a lively rendition of "To Life" from Fiddler on the Roof (which you can enjoy below).

Four years later, the two welcomed their first son, Sebastian, into the world. Then in 2018, Vanessa gave birth to their second boy, Francisco.

While neither Lin-Manuel nor Vanessa have Instagram accounts, their fans can occasionally catch the Broadway star posting about his leading lady on Twitter. Otherwise, fans usually have to wait until award show season to see the two together.

But in case there was any doubt how the two feel about each other, there's always Lin-Manuel's rap-filled 2008 Tony acceptance speech for his work on In the Heights.

"Vanessa, who still leaves me breathless," he said. "Thanks for loving me when I was broke and making breakfast."

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