In this week’s DIVA Dating Digest, we learn more about the Sex And The City star and her activist wife
BY YASMIN VINCE, IMAGE VIA INSTAGRAM (@CYNTHIAENIXON)
Cynthia Nixon has long delighted fans as Miranda Hobbes, a cynical lawyer who made up one-quarter of Sex And The City’s main cast. While Miranda only started dating women in the 2022 spin-off And Just Like That…, Cynthia has been married to Christine Marinoni, an education activist, for 12 years.
Combined, the pair have provided a strong voice for the LGBTQIA community of New York. Join us as we learn more about the couple!
They met through an education campaign
Cynthia and Christine first met when they were both campaigning to reduce the size of public schools in New York City. At the time, Cynthia was still married to Danny Mozes, but the pair became friends and did not start dating until the marriage had ended.
As an education organiser, Christine is regularly involved in education campaigns and founded the Alliance For Quality Education, an organisation that pushes for high-quality public schooling for all students across New York. Cynthia was a spokesperson for the group for 17 years.
Christine has also organised campaign events to call for more police attention to hate crimes against the LGBTQIA community.
Their relationship started 20 years ago
While they met in 2001, Cynthia and Christine didn’t start dating until 2004, a year after the actress finalised her divorce.
Cynthia had never dated a woman before Christine. She told Radio Times that Christine was worried she would panic about what being queer meant for her career. “As if somehow I just hadn’t noticed that she was a woman,” added Cynthia.
But while Cynthia wasn’t worried, her then-publicist was and discouraged her from publicly acknowledging their relationship. She told The Advocate that he kept telling them it should be private. But after hiring openly gay celebrity publicist Kelly Bush, Cynthia was encouraged to confirm the dating rumours. And just like that… she did!
The pair got engaged at a rally for same-sex marriage
Fittingly for a couple who have spent their lives advocating for LGBTQIA rights, Cynthia and Christine got engaged while at a rally to support same-sex marriage in New York in 2009.
According to PEOPLE, Nixon flashed her ring to the crowd and then declared that it was “time already”.
But the pair didn’t tie the knot until 2012
As a lifelong New Yorker, Cynthia vowed not tot get married until same-sex marriage was legalized throughout the state.
Staying true to her word, the couple were engaged for over two years, eventually getting married on 27 May 2012. This was just under a year after the state House and Senate passed legislation allowing gay marriage, becoming the sixth state to do so.
Neither Cynthia nor Christine wore white, both opting for green.
They have a son
A year before they got married, Christine gave birth to the couple’s son, Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni. Cynthia also has two children from her marriage to Danny Mozes.
Sadly, Marinoni had several miscarriages and thought she would be unable to have a child. But thankfully she and Cynthia welcomed their son in February 2011.
Christine helped Cynthia run for State Governor in 2018
Due to her work as a community organiser and activist, Christine was working as a senior advisor for New York Mayor Bill De Blasio but resigned to help Cynthia run for State Governor in 2018.
Cynthia ran as a challenger to the Democratic incumbent Andrew Cuomo and centred her platform on income inequality, universal health care and protecting undocumented children from deportation. She lost the Democratic primary to Andrew Cuomo.
After he was forced to resign in 2021, Cynthia tweeted: “The difference between me and Andrew Cuomo? Neither of us is governor, but I still have my Emmy(s).”
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