You know what they say, so long as you have your health.
“You have to keep it healthy,” Coco Austin said of her and husband Ice-T‘s approach to sex, speaking to E! News at Heidi Klum’s 2024 Halloween party. “I would say good and healthy is three times a week. I think that’s good after 23 years. I think you have to keep it up.”
Her life partner would concur, having told E! in January 2024 that “jungle sex” with his wife helped keep the fire burning.
Though make that his wife and teammate.
“We have to be teammates, not opponents, not assets, not liabilities,” he added. “I value what she brings to me, and I think it’s vice versa. We appreciate each other.”
And as he noted in a post marking their 24th anniversary on Dec. 31, “Yep…We keep it Sexy.”
But while their life together has its ripped-from-a-rap-song moments, overall they’re just a devoted couple who figured out a formula that worked for them early on.
“I let him do the man thing, and I do the woman thing,” Coco told TVGuide.com in 2012 when asked for the secret to her lasting relationship with her husband of, at the time, 11 years. “Old-fashioned works.”
And they always made time for date nights. “Especially Sundays, we’ll get dressed up for each other and we’ll go to the movies or out to dinner or something,” Coco said. “We make it special.”
Then, at home, she’d make it extra-special. “I like to try to make my home kind of like a club atmosphere for him and get in a super-sexy outfit,” she continued. “Sometimes I make it kind of like a strip club, and I’ll get sexy and dance for him. Just make it all him.”
But another key to their bond is making sure it’s never just about one of them or the other.
Ice-T cited “compromise” when host Ben “Baller” Yang inquired about the tricks to his “long and strong” marriage, on the March 5, 2020, episode of the Behind the Baller podcast.
“It’s hard enough to get along—we’re humans and humans are f–ked up creatures,” the rapper born Tracy Lauren Marrow explained. “First you have to admit how f–ked up you are without anybody around…Then you look at your wife and you go, ‘I love you for dealin’ with my s–t.'” And, echoing his wife’s long-ago assessment, he advised appreciating your lady’s differences. “Let her be a woman…Appreciate what a woman is.”
Then, of course, there’s the fact that she’s the GOAT.
“You are honestly the nicest person I’ve ever met. Best MOM in the world,” Ice-T posted on her 45th birthday March 17. “And you just get BETTER every year. Chanel and I LOVE you more that words can explain.. ICE&COCO… Thats One word.”
Her latest birthday message to him Feb. 16 was no less effusive, Coco calling Ice-T “the love of my life” and “the perfect man for me.”
They also ring in every new year celebrating their love for each other, having said “I do” to forever on Dec. 31, 2001. (But without a marriage license, a technicality they remedied five years later.)
“Time flies when you’re having fun.. literally!! My love for you has gotten stronger year after year..,” Coco tweeted on New Year’s Eve in 2022. “Thank you for all the wonderful decades we’ve had together! I’m so blessed for our beautiful family.. Cheers to many more #22anniversary I love you baby.”
Ice-T posted a photo from their wedding, captioned, “To my incredible Wife and Love of my life @Coco ‘Getting married is like casting for a Movie. Ya gotta find someone who is ready for ALL the scenes… The Good, bad, ups and downs.’ 22yrs and still going Strong as F. I Love You.”
The previous year, he shared a pic that he says was taken the moment they first met in 2001. “Look at my face…lol,” he wrote, making sure everyone noticed his gobsmacked expression.
But as he has also said on many occasions, it was all in the timing.
Ice-T had been watching The Osbournes on MTV and thinking that it might be nice to settle down, that there was no way Ozzy Osbourne would be living that relatively stable domestic life in a Beverly Hills mansion if not for his missus, Sharon Osbourne.
“You know what they say, when a woman finds the right man, it’s the right time,” he said on Behind the Baller. “When a man hits the right time, he’ll find the right woman.”
So there he was, at a party in Atlantic City, when he first laid eyes on his future wife, one memorable part of her at a time.
“It was her teeth, they were the first things I saw,” he recalled to MailOnline in 2012. “And then I saw her boobs. And then,” he added with a reported laugh, “when she turned around, that big butt.”
In turn, “There was an instant physical attraction,” he continued, “but I was at a point in my life where I was ready to slow down. I wanted a partner. I wasn’t in a position to be dating a beautiful psychopath.”
While Coco’s never shied away from showing off the curves she’s so proud of (curves she’s still in the gym weight-training multiple days a week to maintain), Ice-T definitely had the wrong idea about the then-22-year-old.
“Honestly, I thought she was too pretty to be, as you would say, ‘domesticated,'” he told PR.com in 2011. “Like, can we fit at home or is this a girl who just wants to party? But she was like, ‘No, I’m ready. Let’s just go snuggle someplace and do home stuff.'”
Wary at first, “I applied the stereotype that everyone does to Coco—that she just wanted to party and have a good time,” he further admitted to MailOnline. “But she was just an honest and giving woman. She’s the nicest person, man or woman, I’ve ever met.” She even liked the red snakeskin suit he had on that night, he marveled.
Not that Ice-T was unfamiliar with the concept of people making assumptions.
“People think he just walks around, like, wanting to murder people ’cause he’s a gangsta rapper,” Coco told TVGuide.com in 2012. But he was actually really “lovable and kind,” she added, though “if you’re trying to get the teddy bear reaction, he’s not like that with everybody else.”
They married (the first time) in Las Vegas just a couple months after meeting and remain rooted on the East Coast, where Law & Order: SVU is filmed. Ice-T reported for work in 2000 thinking he was going to do four episodes and remains a fan favorite on the enduring NBC procedural, now in its 26th season, contentedly trading in Hollywood for the New Jersey suburbs.
The artist also took a cue from the Prince of Darkness when it came to handing the keys to the empire over to his fairer half.
“Behind the scenes Coco has actually been my personal assistant, similar to Sharon Osbourne and Ozzy, running all my businesses, all the logistics of tours and all that,” he told PR.com in 2011. “Everything that I do other than act, Coco’s on the phone making all those deals happen and doing everything that she’s doing with her career, simultaneously. So I’ve got the easy job. I just go out and do the work and Coco handles all the business behind the scenes.”
And Ice-T couldn’t gush enough about his ride-or-die, saying, “She’s sincere, she’s sweet. She’s not silly on a relationship level. She’s goofy and playful, but she’s very sincere. She means what she says, she didn’t lie, she’s honest and she wasn’t materialistic. She was just like, ‘If you treat me right, I’ll treat you right.’ That’s pretty much the basis to any good deal, just treat each other right. She’s lived up to the deal for the past 10 years.”
Coco added, “And I wanted to become that ultimate woman for him. When I was around him for a couple weeks, I gathered all the facts of what he liked and what he didn’t like, and I just shape-shifted into that woman for him.”
Which didn’t mean she wasn’t being herself, Ice-T pointed out, but rather, “when she finds somebody she loves, she just wants to do the best at it. I think what you do when you look at your mate, you’re like, ‘OK, well, these are some of the things they dig, this is how they like it, and it’s not a problem. I can accommodate.’ Hopefully the person you meet, what they want is you. But it’s kind of like, ‘Well I want somebody who can cook spaghetti.’ Well then, you know what, I’m a f–kin’ spaghetti cook, how about that! And that’s when you say, ‘Wow, we’re a match here!'”
Kind of like Ice-T so effortlessly playing a cop, their marriage also defied expectations.
“People had certain preconceptions of us,” he told MailOnline. “They thought I’d be burying bodies in the back garden and Coco would be off stripping at birthday parties. But we’re a normal couple with a normal relationship and people are starting to see that.”
Coco explained to the publication that the main reason why she wanted to do the E! show Ice Loves Coco was to prove that looks can be deceiving.
“I told him, ‘Honey, you’ve been in the picture 30 years and I’ve been in the picture 10 years, [but] people didn’t really get to see my personality and I was getting sick of hearing the negative stuff about me,'” she recounted. “I wanted them to see the other side—my family side, my wifey side. I had to talk him into it.'”
Ice-T was against the idea at first because he thought they were too boring—at least for reality TV. “We don’t fight and there’s none of that drama,” he pointed out. And, of course, he’d seen what had happened to other couples who’d opened up their lives in that way. “I didn’t want to jeopardize our relationship for any show,” he noted, “or amp it up for the cameras.”
But fans fell for Ice LovesCoco, which ran from 2011 to 2013, and ended up with an entirely new understanding of the pair.
“People didn’t get us as a couple,” Ice-T said, “but the thing is, a loud woman is great for robbing a bank, but a tough, rowdy guy wants to be with a nice, gentle woman. Coco’s gentle and sweet and nice. She’s just an angel.”
Coco told PR.com, “People just see me as a model and as the party girl because the only time paparazzi are out is usually when we go to red carpet events and you’re wearing crazy outfits and going to the after-parties. They don’t see what I do on a normal, regular basis.” Sure, they had that “crazy relationship life where we go out, we party, and we have fun together as a couple. Then when we come home we relax. We play video games together, we watch DVDs together. We’re very homey people that just like to chill.”
And, needless to say, starring in their own show for three seasons did not make Ice love Coco any less, or vice versa. (Though Ice-T thinks once was enough, telling In Touch Weekly in May 2021, “After a few seasons, normal people’s lives loop, and you do the same things over and over, but that’s not entertaining television.”)
Looking back on their two decades together, “It’s a beautiful thing,” Ice-T reflected on Behind the Baller in 2020. “I’ve been very fortunate to have Coco in my corner. You know, all relationships have their ups and downs, they got their bulls–t, but if you really love somebody you’re gonna pull through. I’m with Coco for the rest of the way out.”
With a nod to the less family-friendly days of his past, he added, “I’m just lucky to have arrived at this place, because I never thought I was gonna make it.”
In addition to his beloved wife, “this place” includes their 9-year-old daughter, Chanel, who at this stage of the game, Ice-T said, “is the best thing that could’ve happened to me.”
Which is one of the reasons why family-of-three time takes precedence these days over alone time as a couple—though they make sure to pencil that in.
“At the end of the night we turn our bed into the family bed,” Coco said on E!’s Daily Pop in August 2021. In turn, “Sexy time is kind of iffy…But we schedule those times in. We have a dog handler to take the dogs, we have a babysitter. It is so worth it because it is not going to last forever. Her being little like this is not going to last forever.”
She additionally said on the Moms Like Us podcast around the same time, “This works for us and it makes us happy. And again, we only have one child and we like the feeling of the cuddliness and watching TV at night and bringing it together, because our lives are so sporadic during the day. We’re not the normal couple. We’re always on the go, so at night, bringing it in with our family, that’s our alone time without the world, we’re like in our little bubble. And Chanel has her own room, she can go in there whenever she wants and she takes her little naps, but we just like our alone time with the family.”
Ice-T is also father to a 48-year-old daughter, Latesha Marrow, and 32-year-old son, Ice Tracy Marrow Jr., from previous relationships. But he admitted to Baller that he was “presents over present” for his first child’s life and, when his second was born, “I was tryin’ to be a star. I took care of him and his mother, but I wasn’t as focused.”
By the time Chanel was born, he was fully there for Coco, saying, “There’s nothing else in life I could’ve got that was gonna be as exciting, as appreciated, as Chanel.”
And the same went for Coco, who first had to weather years of the usual pregnancy speculation that dogs pretty much all women, let alone famous ones, when they settle down with a partner. She shared some of the journey, including a moment when she thought she might be expecting and was surprisingly (to her) disappointed to find out she wasn’t, on Ice Loves Coco.
Then, when she found out she was having a daughter…
“I’ve been underneath the roof of a male-dominated house forever,” the model blogged for E! News in September 2015. “Ice-T is very male. The dogs are very male. I was like, God give me a girl so I can liven things up with some cute fashion. I can have a personal doll. So God answered my prayer and I got a little girl, so why the hell not would I want to dress her up?”
When she announced Chanel Nicole‘s birth on Nov. 28, 2015, Coco shared, “Ice and I are so proud! I cried while she was coming out I was so excited to meet her!”
Mother and daughter have been inseparable ever since, Chanel quickly becoming her mom’s adorably dressed constant companion. Ice-T acknowledged as much when he told In Touch that it was going to be “a very emotional day” for Coco when Chanel went off to school.
He reiterated that give-and-take in a relationship is key, explaining, “We address problems quickly. She doesn’t say, ‘I’m mad at you from last month.’ How am I supposed to fix something if I didn’t know it was broken? And we compromise. If you want to win every argument and do whatever you want to do, there’s a name for that—it’s called being single!”
And while he’s been grateful to her for having his back, Ice-T has been in his wife’s corner, as well, such as when the Internet has come for her parenting choices. A revelation that she was still breastfeeding Chanel when the child was 5—”She just likes a little snack every now and then”—really set ’em off.
“News Flash! We feed Chanel FOOD… She just likes to suck moms boob every now and then… Me Too!!!” Ice-T tweeted in response to Coco’s critics, then dove into the comments with, “Why the F are you worried about MY Child??? That’s what’s weird.. Now go back in the basement.”
Seemingly unfazed by the backlash and appreciating her husband’s defense tactics, Coco quipped on Daily Pop, “Well, he loves the boobs, too. He’s got one side, she’s got the other. She’s going to be a boob freak.”
More seriously, she continued, “I just don’t believe society says they should stop at two [years old]. ‘You as a mother should stop because they said so.’ I’m [not] going to stop because I feel like it’s a great bonding experience between her and I. She’s my only child, it’s not like I have a big family of kids, and so I’m savoring every moment with this child.”
As for Ice, Coco added, “he believes in everything I believe.” (And, finally, that includes TikTok.)
When the actor appeared on The View on Sept. 30, 2021, the hosts asked him about more vitriol directed at his wife over a photo of Chanel sporting French nail tips for school picture day.
“Rule 1: Do not pay attention to anything anyone says on the Internet,” Ice-T advised. “Worry about the people who walk up to you and say things in your real life. Those are the people you should be concerned with. The internet is the world. It’s the world talking.”
“Everybody parents differently,” he continued. “Every house has its own constitution. We’re doing okay. Our baby’s okay.” (An Insta from March 2022 showing Ice-T playing a video game while Chanel enjoyed a little tablet time and one of their pups lazed next to them would attest to that. “‘Original Gangster’ This is what my down time looks like… Gangster as F! lol,” he wrote.)
And he and Coco are more than OK.
“Lol… I love how the white dude looked at me then took time to check Coco out…,” Ice-T wrote in calling out a nearby audience member who sneaked a peek at Coco during the 2023 Grammys. “I TOTALLY understand.”
As he said on Behind the Baller about meeting his match, “It’s a great thing when it happens.”
Be they spicy or sweet, read on for more secrets behind the longest celebrity marriages:
Mariska Hargitay & Peter Hermann
“I never thought that I would laugh this much in my marriage. That is such a fundamental ingredient of who you are, this insistence on joy,” Hermann detailed to his bride of their partnership of over 20 years in Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue‘s 2020 book What Makes a Marriage Last. “And I think what sustains our marriage is that I know you love me in spite of who I am, and that is the definition of grace.”
Seeking out that happiness is key. Even after a particularly robust argument, “One of us will test the waters with a joke—about the very thing we were fighting about,” Herman shared of life with the Law & Order: SVU star. “It’s like one of us says, ‘I’m not saying I was wrong, and I’m not still insisting I was entirely right, but can we at least inch our way back toward the place where we caught at stuff together?’ Once that happens, it’s a pretty good sign that things are on their way to getting patched up.”
Chip Gaines & Joanna Gaines
They’ve avoided need for any major renovation by sticking to the same advice they got in premarital counseling ahead of their 2003 vows. Even five kids in, Tuesday date nights are a must and they’ve held off on purchasing a TV, instead finding other ways to connect.
But if Chip were to offer any tip to follow, it’d be to pursue the person you love “like a hornet.” Some two decades in, he said, he still feels like the guy hoping to get a second date. “I’m not saying she’d never cheat on me,” he explained, “but it’s not going to be because I never told her I loved her or because I didn’t send her flowers or I forgot our anniversary.”
Kyra Sedgwick & Kevin Bacon
“My first piece of advice is not to take advice from celebrities,” Bacon joked of his 36-year union. It’s as succinct as their other go-to, “Keep the fights clean and the sex dirty,” a phrase developed specifically to end any further chatter about their marriage.
Truthfully, though, they make it a point not to let arguments linger, rarely digging in for the sake of the victory. “Honestly, we don’t like to fight, so when we actually are in an argument, we’re both looking for a solution,” The Closer actress explained to Thomas and Donahue. “For the most part we’re struggling to get back to everything being okay, because it sucks to fight.” Because, when it comes down to it, she continued, “There is no Plan B. No matter what, we want to work it out.”
Michael J. Fox & Tracy Pollan
Over 37 years into marriage, the actors have mastered the art of fighting fair. “Tracy and I don’t pick scabs,” explained the Family Ties alum. “In some marriages, people look at their partner and see vulnerability and they just can’t help but go after that vulnerability, like it’s a sport or something. We don’t do that.”
That’s not to say they don’t have arguments. “If I’ve said something stupid, I have the tendency to want to take it back and make it all okay,” he said. “But that doesn’t really work.” Instead, he follows her lead and tries to give her space. She, in turn, offers up understanding: “Sometimes you just have to say to yourself, ‘You know what? He said something schmucky and it made me feel bad. But he’s a good person and I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t realize that what he said hurt my feelings.'”
Jamie Lee Curtis & Christopher Guest
“He still makes me laugh more than any human being,” Curtis said about the Waiting for Guffman director on Today in December 2024, ahead of the couple’s 40th wedding anniversary, adding jokingly, “and I’m sure there’s something about me that he likes. I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure there’s something.”
Neil Patrick Harris & David Burtka
“I think one of the things that has kept us together all of these years is that we both define relationships as something that’s relatively indefinable,” the How I Met Your Mother alum said. Through 21 years of career shifts (actor-chef Burtka released his cookbook Life Is a Party in 2019), parenting twins Gideon and Harper and dealing with tough times, “Marriage never stays the same,” explained Harris. “When you have sex with the same person over and over, it gets redundant, and so you try different things. Then one day you don’t like each other, and suddenly you’re not attracted to each other, so you have to figure out how to be reattracted to them—but in a different way because you’re aging.”
Eventually, he continued, you find yourself more attracted to their soul. And then their body again. “It all keeps morphing,” he noted. “So in a weird way, we keep falling in love with each other in different ways, over and over.”
Melissa McCarthy & Ben Falcone
Appropriately, the comic actors believe their funniness gives them life. And not just in their 19-year union itself. “Whenever we have a good laugh,” noted the Can You Ever Forgive Me? actress, “especially a crazy one, when you’re like, Oh, my God, and you’re almost dizzy—we always assign it a specific amount of time that it added to our lives. And I’m always adding it up. I’ll say, ‘Okay, that was like two months—I just got two more months to live!'”
They put a time limit on disagreements as well. Citing the oft-repeated don’t go to bed angry rule, Falcone, said, “I tried it once, and I realized that in the morning I had forgotten what I was mad about. You’re not getting any answers if you’re parsing out an argument when everybody is tired and possibly had a drink or two. I’ve never had the thing where you’re having an argument at ten o’clock at night, and then you say, ‘Well, that was good. I’m glad we got to the bottom of that. We agree. Truce signed.'”
Ted Danson & Mary Steenburgen
Each having wed before they found their way to the other in 1995, they not only had to navigate a marriage, but life as step-parents to two children apiece. “There is no book that tells you how to do it, so the one thing I figured out right away is that they already have a mom—and it’s not me. So what did they need from me?” the Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist actor recalled. “That’s when I realized that everybody needs a cheerleader, right? There’s never too many of those in your life, so that’s what I’ll be. I never set their boundaries, disciplined them, or tried to teach them right from wrong. They have parents who do that.”
The Cheers alum agreed with her stance wholeheartedly. “I think that’s really wise, to offer yourself as a friend,” he said. “‘I’m not going to discipline you and I’m not going to judge you. What I’m going to do is hang out with you and be there for you.’ And that’s what you have to do: absolutely, genuinely be there.”
Elton John & David Furnish
The moment same-sex civil unions were legalized in Britain, the music icon and the Canadian ad exec were joined together in a Dec. 21, 2005 ceremony. They repeated the process on the exact same day nine years later once they were able to legally wed. And yet the anniversary they recognize is their unexpected meeting during a 1993 weekend dinner party at the singer’s Windsor, England flat, his friend having set the guest list.
Every Saturday, no matter where they are in the world, together or apart, the two pen a handwritten note to each other, by the authors’ count, some 1,352 letters in all. “There’s something very spiritual and real about handwriting,” explains Furnish, “and the cards are a chance to reflect on the week that’s passed and talk about the week that’s coming up.” Agreed the five-time Grammy winner, “It’s part of the success, I think, of a lasting relationship. Communication is the most important thing.”
Dr. Mehmet Oz & Lisa Oz
Having literally Secreted their 40-year marriage into existence (“Six months before I met him, I had these recurring dreams about this person I was going to marry,”) they make sure their union has remained front-and-center even as their entire existence has shifted.
“Marriage is a priority for both of us. And that means that we act on that and refocus when we’ve lost sight of the ball,” she said. If the surgeon could prescribe one piece of advice, it would be to place that bond above all else. “The bottom line is this: I would do anything for her. Climb any mountain, take any bullet—in the chest, too, by the way. I might do things that justifiably make her really angry at me, but I would never let anything block me from delivering my love to her,” he swore.
If you appreciate how valuable marriage is to your long-term happiness, he continued, “You will never let anyone touch it.”
Al Roker & Deborah Roberts
ABC News reporter Roberts isn’t always one for chit-chat. “I don’t like the check-in,” she explaind. “If you’re calling just to say, ‘So, what’s up?’ no, I do not like that.” Everyone’s favorite TV weatherman, however, is a phone guy. And after years of chafing against his frequent calls, a pal proposed something that changed her stance. “
One friend said to me, ‘Did you ever think that maybe he just feels comfortable when he hears your voice, because that tells him that all is right in the world?'” she recounted. “And I thought, ‘That’s very sweet. I’d never thought about it in that way. And if it means something to him, then it should mean something to me.'”
Now, she said, “I have learned to take a breath and say, ‘Sweetie, I’ve got some stuff going on, but what’s going on with you? Great. I’m glad to hear from you. Got to go. Talk to you later. Love you.’ That makes all the difference in the world to him, and it doesn’t kill me for two minutes to be nice and sweet.” They celebrated their 29th anniversary in September 2024.
Kelly Ripa & Mark Consuelos
The building blocks for their nearly 30-year union began back in their newlywed days, when any fight—one involved the Riverdale actor throwing the talk show host’s ring out the window—felt like it could be it. “Early in a marriage, it’s easy to let little things become big things—whether it’s financial strain or career strain or you have kids and you’re sleep-deprived,” espoused the LIVE With Kelly and Ryan star. “But Mark taught me to walk away and take a breath. That’s when you figure out that it’s not a marriage-defining moment.”
Some hard-earned wisdom, to be sure, but now the parents of three are reaping the benefits. “Anytime you see a couple who seems truly happy, you can bet they’ve gone through some crazy, crazy stuff together and they’ve survived,” he stated. “That’s something to be proud of.”
Viola Davis & Julius Tennon
She’s an introvert, she said, “maybe a step away from being a straight-up loner”; he’s the ultimate extrovert “the mayor of everywhere,” as he put it. She’s a touch messy; he’s “a little OCD” noted the Oscar winner. But, wed since 2003, they’ve long since learned to let the other do their thing.
That’s the advice the How to Get Away With Murder lead said she gives to all her soon-to-be-wed friends. “Marriage does not start when you walk down the aisle,” she shared. “Your marriage starts when you look over at a person who you love more than anything, and there’s something about him—just one character trait that makes you say to yourself, ‘Oh man, that’s going to drive me crazy. I don’t know if I can deal with this.’ And then the next minute you say, ‘But you know what? I love him.’ That’s when your marriage starts.”
Lily Tomlin & Jane Wagner
You don’t reach the 50-year mark in any relationship by letting disagreements drag on. Any time there’s a blowup, noted the Grace and Frankie star, “Usually, I’m the one who apologizes. It’s not hard because I love her and can’t bear for her to feel lonely for even five minutes.”
Even better is when she can avoid saying she’s sorry to the writer altogether. Her top takeaway, she shared, “Remember, when you’re angry at your partner and say something hurtful, you will be more angry at yourself later for having said hurtful things to the person you love. You’ll feel angry twice. Not good for your blood pressure, and certainly not good for your relationship.”
Judges Judy Sheindlin & Jerry Sheindlin
Few things are more on brand than former New York State Supreme Court judge Jerry declaring their decades-long union works because he usually lets the Judge Judy icon win. But for his bride it’s more about knowing you’re not always going to like the final verdict. Their 12-year marriage dissolved in 1990 when he couldn’t be the caretaker she needed following her father’s death. Yet, when they got back together one year later and quickly remarried, she had no delusions that he was suddenly going to be the type to run the household or take the lead on birthday plans.
“Every relationship is different, but there is a common thread of unhappiness, and that unhappiness comes from trying to make another person different from who they are. You can try, but they’re always going to resent it,” she explained matter-of-factly. “I don’t think you should marry anyone with the expectation of changing who they are.”
Daniel Dae Kim & Mia Kim
The Lost alum would be, well, lost without his longtime love, who he married in 1993. As he explained to E! News in April 2025, “My wife—being patient as I traipse around the world, going from job to job—she’s kept our family stable. She’s been fantastic.”
Calling her a “very patient woman,” the actor said his wife and their two sons keeps him “humble no matter what’s happening.”
“They shape my values,” he added. “It’s great to have that perspective and North Star.”
(Originally published March 17, 2022, at 4 a.m. PT)
