Celeb Spouses Who Quietly Work A Regular Job

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It's easy to understand why many celebs pair off with other celebs. After all, dealing with the demands of Hollywood life has to be a lot easier with a partner who can understand the ins and outs of the entertainment biz. But not all celebrity relationships are created equal, and for the folks on this list, love happened far from Tinseltown.

Through chance meetings, family friends, and non-Hollywood work associations, these stars fell hard for so-called "normals," and what's more interesting than that, perhaps, is the fact that despite the instant relief of no longer having to do so, these spouses of the stars kept their jobs.

Yep, you read that right. This group that includes lawyers, a stockbroker, an advertising executive, and even a highway patrolman all chose to keep punching a clock rather than retiring early to champagne wishes and caviar dreams. These are the celeb spouses who quietly work a regular job.

"Modern Family" star Jesse Tyler Ferguson met his husband, lawyer and activist Justin Mikita, at the gym, but according to Us Weekly, they like to tell people it was through "mutual friends." Regardless of their origin story, it seems that Mikita's career has had more of an influence over his star hubby than the other way around.

In a 2014 interview with Out, Mikita, who had previously "worked for the American Foundation for Equal Rights on the Prop 8 case," talked about a new foundation that he coaxed Ferguson into starting. That foundation, Tie the Knot, is a fundraising effort that sells celebrity-designed bow-ties to finance advocacy "for the LGBTQ civil rights throughout the United States & beyond."

"It was really cool to see him being gratified by doing something he never thought that he had in him," Mikita told Out of Ferguson's involvement with Tie the Knot. "He never thought of himself as an activist."

Asked about the impetus for his activism during his 2015 Reddit AMA, Ferguson revealed just how influential Mikita was in that regard. "Having been bullied as a kid I really felt for people who felt marginalized or 'less than,'" Ferguson wrote. "I wanted to use my new platform to help people. Justin, my husband has been an amazing partner in helping me make those ideas a reality. He is equally passionate and has great ideas."

Desperate Housewives star Marcia Cross found her non-Hollywood bliss with financial adviser Tom Mahoney, and according to People, it was Cross who made the first move. Speaking with the mag the year after their 2006 marriage, Cross said she left her number for Mahoney after seeing him "outside an L.A. flower store" in 2004. They had dinner a week later, and the rest was history.

In 2007, Cross and Mahoney welcomed twin daughters Savannah and Eden. Though the happy couple is relatively private about its relationship, it was reported in 2009 that Mahoney underwent treatment for an unspecified form of cancer. According to the Daily Mail, he "lost significant amounts of weight" and "the majority of his hair" during treatment.

Fortunately, Cross told TV Guide in 2010 that Mahoney was "absolutely 100 percent clear at the moment." She added, "It's always checking, checking, checking for another year or so." We here at Nicki Swift certainly hope for the best.

There's not a whole lot of publicly available information about "Friends" star Lisa Kudrow's husband, Michel Stern. He is usually referred to in the press as a "French advertising executive" or "French businessman," but that's about as deep as his biographical background gets. Kudrow, however, has shed a bit of light on the origin story of their romance.

According to the Daily Mail, Kudrow met Stern while she was "living with a French girl and he had just moved here." Kudrow was instantly attracted to him, but there was a snag: Stern was dating her roommate. "When he'd come to pick her up, he'd say, 'Oh, hello Lisa,' and I'd say, 'Hi,' and I'd go and leave the room and he thought I was a freak," she said of the awkward situation. The relationship between Stern and Kudrow's roommate only lasted two and a half months. 

Six years later, Kudrow and Stern bumped into each other at the roommate's birthday party, and they've been together ever since. They wed in 1995 and welcomed son Julian in 1998. Asked about the secret to her marital longevity, the actress told Glamour, "When [Michel and I] decided to get married, we understood: We're not promising to love each other forever, because you can't do that, but we are promising to work on whatever problems come up. We're committed to our marriage working."

Former "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart's wife, Tracey Stewart, actually spent much of her life working regular jobs that she really didn't like in the design field. It wasn't until her husband encouraged her to find a job that would "make [her] cry," according to NPR, that she went back to school to become a veterinary technician. "He was absolutely right," Tracey said. "It was the best job I ever had and I truly loved that job."

Tracey turned her passion and training into a whole new focus for her life. She wrote a book about animal stewardship, and together with Jon, bought a 12-acre New Jersey farm with the intention of turning it into a non-profit animal rescue, according to The New York Times. Tracey also founded Moomah, the online lifestyle magazine that covers topics ranging from veganism to sustainable living, to, of course, animal rights advocacy.

Granted, Tracey has now become something of a minor celebrity in that niche world, but it's interesting to think that while her husband cracked jokes on TV every night, she was possibly in an animal hospital somewhere, holding down an angry cat having its nails clipped.

It's pretty common knowledge that Ken Jeong, the actor who got his start playing Katherine Heigl's cantankerous doctor in "Knocked Up," is actually a licensed medical practitioner. In fact, so is his wife, Dr. Tran Ho, who Jeong credits as the sole reason he transitioned into acting in the first place.

Speaking with People in 2015, Jeong revealed that Ho "still works part time," and that when it came to his acting career, she "was like a good college coach telling the star player it was time to go pro." In an interview with "Conan," Jeong said he met Ho met while working at the same practice. They hit it off right away and were engaged within a few months.  

Jeong reiterated his devotion to Ho in a touching Mother's Day tribute for HuffPost. In it, he shared that Ho battled "a highly aggressive form of breast cancer" in 2008, which was the year after the birth of their twin daughters, Zooey and Alexa, and just as Jeong landed his career-defining role as Leslie Chow in "The Hangover." Even in this difficult time, Ho championed Jeong's career and insisted he take the role even as she embarked on several years of "grueling treatments."

"When Tran was told she was cancer-free, it was the greatest moment of my life," Jeong wrote. "In those two years, I fell in love with my wife all over again and discovered a deeper love and appreciation for her than I ever had. For that, I am thankful."

Wanda Sykes was in he midst of renovating her kitchen when she met her future wife, Alex Niedbalski. As the comedian revealed in an interview with The Guardian, she was taking a ferry to Fire Island when she spotted Niedbalski, to whom she was immediately attracted. "Something really said to me — like, audibly — 'Wow, that's what you need, Wanda.'" She did not, however, make a first move. 

While vacationing on Fire Island, Sykes was regaling friends with anecdotes about her ongoing kitchen remodel. One of those friends told her she knew a Frenchwoman who sold granite countertops, who could help Sykes make an informed choice about her counters. The friend introduced Sykes to that purveyor of granite — who was, you guessed it, Niedbalski. They married in 2008. The following year, Niedbalski gave birth to the couple's twins, daughter Olivia Lou and son Lucas Claude.

According to Niedbalski's LinkedIn account, she spent more than a decade as executive vice president of sales and business development for Polycor, a company that supplies natural stone for counters, floors, and various other uses. In August 2023, she was promoted to the firm's chief communication officer. Prior to coming to Polycor, her background was in both sales and marketing, having worked in marketing for the Fédération Française de BasketBall and the Women's Tennis Association in her native France back in the late 1990s.

During an appearance on "The Howard Stern Show" (as reported by "Good Morning America"), comedian Amy Schumer revealed that she met future spouse Chris Fischer through his sister, Molly, who's her personal assistant. She suggested to Schumer that Fischer — a professional chef — drop by her vacation home in Martha's Vineyard to cook for her. They hit it off, and one thing led to another. They got married in secret back in 2018, and welcomed son Gene the following year.

Prior to meeting Schumer, Fischer ran the family-owned Beetlebung Farm and the Beach Plum Inn and Restaurant in Menemsha, Massachusetts. "I spent a lot of time on the farm growing up because my mother was working here, but took over running operations from my aunt, Marie, when she retired in 2010 after 35 years," Fischer told Esquire. Fischer is also the author of the James Beard award-winning cookbook, "Beetlebung Farm Cookbook: A Year of Cooking on Martha's Vineyard." That's not Fischer's only professional experience; he was also hired at celebrity chef Mario Batali's now-defunct NYC restaurant, Babbo, where Fischer spent three years as chef. Prior to that, he worked at the American Academy in Rome, and River Cafe in London. 

During the pandemic, Fischer and Schumer melded their respective professions to create their self-shot cooking show, "Amy Schumer Learns to Cook," which aired on the Food Network.

Ilana Glazer is best known for her Comedy Central series "Broad City," which she co-created and co-starred in with Abbi Jacobson. In 2017, Glazer married her longtime boyfriend David Rookin, in a top-secret ceremony held at City Hall in NYC. They welcomed their first child in 2021.

A 2014 New Yorker profile on Glazer and Jacobson made mention of Rooklin, noting at the time that he was in the midst of completing his postdoctoral degree in molecular modeling at New York University. During a 2017 apearance on "Live with Kelly and Ryan," Glazer revealed that she met Rooklin shortly before "Broad City" was picked up by Comedy Central. "I was very humbled. He's in science so he doesn't know comedy. We met in Washington Square Park and we just made eyes and it was like, 'Damn,'" she said, as reported by Us Weekly. She also opened up about their wedding, which she admitted was a pretty stress-free experience. "It was crazy," she said. "It was pretty casual and just chill."

These days, Rooklin is the co-founder and CEO of Redesign Science. "We are a platform biotech working at the intersection of enhanced sampling molecular dynamics and generative AI," Rooklin wrote of his company in his LinkedIn profile. "We deploy our platform technology to develop first-in-class Protein Interaction Modulators against validated targets in oncology and inflammatory/autoimmune indications."

Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran and Cherry Seaborn have known each other since long before he became famous, but didn't walk down the aisle until 2022. At the time of the nuptials, they were already parents of daughter Lyra Antarctica, born in August 2020; they welcomed a second child, Jupiter, in 2022.

While Sheeran focused on music, Seaborn was off getting a heavy-duty education. After graduating from university in the U.K., she attended Duke University in North Carolina. In a 2013 interview with Duke University's The Chronicle, she revealed that she'd long dreamed of coming to the U.S. "Ever since I was in high school I've always wanted to ... study in the United States," Seaborn said, also sharing her desire to land a job in America after graduating.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Seaborn exited Duke with a master's degree in management studies, which landed her a job in New York City with international accounting firm Deloitte. After two years, she transferred to Deloitte's London offices, where she was promoted to manager of tech, digital and innovation. In 2021, she took a break in order to attend Cambridge University, where she earned a postgraduate certificate in sustainable business. That led her back to Deloitte, in a new role focusing on climate and sustainability.

Actor Tatyana Ali is best known for playing Ashley Banks in "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air." Her husband, Vaughn Rasberry, is best known for winning a 2017 American Book Award for his scholarly tome, "Race and the Totalitarian Century: Geopolitics in the Black Literary Imagination," published by Harvard University Press.

Rasberry — who holds a master's degree and Ph.D. — is also an associate professor of English at Stanford. In addition, he teaches in collaboration with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, with courses including Modern Thought and Literature, African and African American Studies, and American Studies. 

In 2022, he was appointed Stanford's associate vice provost for graduate education. "What excites me about the role of associate vice provost for graduate education is the opportunity to support advanced graduate education during an especially challenging time," Rasberry said of his new role in a Stanford video. "And I believe graduate education is worth fighting for. I know the difference that it has made in my life and in the lives of other first-generation minority scholars, so I see this role as an opportunity to pay it forward, to support other students and their aspirations."