When it was announced that Niecy Nash and Jessica Betts wed in a small ceremony in August, most of their fans didn’t even know they were dating. It turns out that the two have been friends for several years, having met on social media in 2015 while Nash was still “happily married” to her ex-husband, Jay Tucker.
But after Nash and Tucker split in October 2019, something shifted between her and Betts, she told People in an interview:
“I loved her before I was in love with her because she is such a special human being,” says Nash. “But we began to see each other in a way we never had before. Sometimes you get so broken by love, you run from it. But I’ve learned that you should always hold space for magic because it can happen at any time.”
Nash explains that it’s not that she’d been suppressing her sexuality for her whole life, but that she loves who she loves at a given time.
“[My marriage] has absolutely nothing to do with gender and it has everything to do with her soul,” Nash says of Betts. “She is the most beautiful soul I have ever met in my life.”
“I don’t feel like my marriage is my coming out of anywhere, but rather a going into myself and being honest about who I love,” she shares. “And I’m not limiting myself on what that love is supposed to look like.”
Nash and Betts wed in front of 24 of their closest friends and family—including Ava Duvernay, Aisha Hinds and LaLa Milan—at their Ventura County home on August 29, an affair that included personal hand sanitizers and custom face masks with “#LoveWins” written across them, as befitting the times. Nash also noted that everyone in attendance was tested for covid, because nothing ruins an otherwise beautiful surprise wedding like everyone getting incredibly sick.