Most people know Cynthia Nixon for playing red-haired Miranda Hobbs on the iconic HBO smash Sex and the City. But prior to landing the defining role in 1998, Nixon had worked in the industry for nearly 20 years, making her TV debut at the tender age of 12 on an episode of ABC Afterschool Special. Today, the 55-year-old actress continues to work on many different projects and has even dipped her toe into politics. She’s also married to activist Christine Marinoni, whom she first met back in 2001. Here’s everything you need to know about Cynthia Nixon’s wife.
Christine Marinoni Is The Only Woman Cynthia Nixon Ever Dated
Before getting together with Marinoni, Cynthia Nixon had only dated men. But the actress says she wasn’t in the closet or hiding who she was before meeting her wife-to-be. “Falling in love with my wife was one of the great delights and surprises of my life,” she told Attitude in 2020. “But it didn’t seem like I became a whole new person, or like some door had been unlocked. It was like: ‘I have fallen in love with different people in my life and they’ve all been men before. Now, this is a woman and she is amazing.’”
Nixon also admitted that she was very into Marinoni’s look. “She’s basically a short man with boobs,” Nixon said in a 2019 interview with the Advocate. “A lot of what I love about her is her butchness. I’m not saying I fell in love with her in a sexually neutral way. I love her sexuality—it’s a big part of what I love about her—but I feel like it was her. It wasn’t something in me that was waiting to come out. It was like, ‘This person is undeniable. How can I let this person walk by?’”
Nixon first met Marinoni in 2001 through her involvement with an education non-profit called Alliance for Quality Education, which Marinoni helped found. While the Sex and the City actress was still in a relationship with long-term partner Danny Mozes at the time (they had been together since 1988), Nixon began dating Marinoni after she split with Mozes in 2003.
The Couple Got Married In 2012
After eight years of dating, Nixon and Marinoni married on May 27, 2012, in New York City. They had been engaged for three years, waiting for same-sex marriage to become legal in the state. While the couple did not share details of the ceremony with the public, they did release a wedding photo atop a New York City rooftop. They also revealed that Nixon wore a custom Carolina Herrera gown, though she admitted she hadn’t given the dress much thought prior to tying the knot.
“I never thought about my wedding dress growing up,” she wrote in a 2012 essay for Elle. “Not once. I’m just not one of those girls. It has nothing to do with being gay— when I was with a man, I didn’t fantasize about my wedding dress either. In fact, I’ve spent most of my life not wanting to get married. But once I finally decided to do it, I knew I wanted a beautiful dress for the occasion.”
Marinoni And Nixon Have One Son Together
On February 7th, 2011, Marinoni gave birth to the couple’s son, Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni, who’s now 10. While they were both able to take time off, Marinoni said she ultimately ended up staying home with the baby more frequently than Nixon. “I’m often more the wife,” she told the New York Times in 2018. “She’s [Nixon] done some pretty big public things. My taking a break and being home with the kids, I think I arguably have done more of that.”
Marinoni added that she was surprised she liked being a stay-at-home mom as much as she did. “I couldn’t actually envision being happily married with kids,” she admitted. “I thought, ‘I’m never going to get that.’ I think it’s amazing that I got that. It’s huge.”
Nixon also has two children with her ex-partner, Danny Mozes — 18-year-old Charlie and 24-year-old Samuel, who goes by Seph. Back in 2018, Nixon took to her Instagram feed to proudly announce her eldest child’s transgender identity and celebrate his college graduation from the University of Chicago.
“I’m so proud of my son Samuel Joseph Mozes (called Seph) who graduated college this month,” she wrote. “I salute him and everyone else marking today’s #TransDayofAction. #TDOA”
Christine Marinoni Has Been An Activist Since 1995
So what is Cynthia Nixon’s wife like? Marinoni prefers to stay out of the spotlight and has kept much of her early life private, though the New York Times reports that she’s the child of two teachers and that she studied economic development at Columbia University in New York City.
We do know that Marinoni was inspired to become an activist more than 25 years ago when one of her friends fell victim to a hate crime.
“In 1995, shortly after I came out, I opened a lesbian coffee shop/bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn,” she explained in a 2017 interview with City & State New York. “A couple years into the coffee shop, one of our bartenders was a victim of a hate crime leaving the premises. We organized some events to bring attention to it, and call for more police attention and protection for the community. Then the Matthew Shepard killing happened and we were also the same folks who had organized the marches in Park Slope, and were kind of the key organizers for some of the work that happened then.”
Marinoni has continued her advocacy work ever since, including campaigning with her wife to bring awareness to anti-LGBTQ crimes and lobby for same-sex marriage. “When I had been dating my now-wife for many years, I wanted to be able to marry her,” she said. “So she and I did some lobbying in New York state and we went up a few times to Albany and met with legislators and talked to them about passage of gay marriage in New York City.”
As for what it’s like to be married to a high-profile star, Marinoni says she’s learned to take it in stride.
“When you’re married to a celebrity and you’re not a celebrity yourself, there’s ways to not be in the spotlight,” she told the New York Times in 2018. “I’ve perfected those, and I abide by them.”
She Almost Became New York’s First Gay First Lady
Marinoni isn’t the only activist in the relationship, however. In 2018, Cynthia Nixon surprised fans and politicians alike when she decided to run for governor of New York. While she eventually lost to Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic Primary, Nixon ran a spirited and tireless campaign, with Marinoni by her side. She did admit, however, that she feared her bid for governor might throw a wrench into their organized family life. In a 2018 interview with Glamour she said:
“My wife or I or the two of us together make dinner every night, and some of that obviously is going to—it’s going to be 7:00 P.M., and we’re going to be like, ‘We should order some food.’ That’s already started to happen. You know, so far, it’s not so bad in terms of paparazzi and reporters and stuff like that, but I worry. I worry, but I think [running is] important.”
Obviously, that didn’t happen, and Marinoni did not end up becoming New York’s first gay first lady. But she and Nixon are still together and appear to be very happy.