Celeb Spouses Who Quietly Work A Regular Job

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.

Julianna Margulies spent seven years portraying Alicia Florrick on "The Good Wife," the hit CBS drama that portrayed the far-from-ideal marriage of a lawyer and her philandering politician husband. In real life, it's Margulies who married the lawyer, Harvard Law graduate Keith Lieberthal.

In 2011, Margulies shared with Ellen DeGeneres (via Entertainment Weekly) the story of how she met her normie Prince Charming. "I met my husband at a dinner party that I wasn't going to go to through an agent I didn't sign with," Margulies said. "I was like, 'I'll come for a drink.' I just started a Broadway show so I didn't want to stay out late. Famous last words. I went, and there was Keith." The unlucky agent happened to know the soon-to-be very lucky Lieberthal from college.

Margulies and Lieberthal hit it off immediately. They married one year later, just ahead of the birth of their son, Keiran, according to People. Asked how their union survives the sometimes rocky road of stardom, Margulies said, "I married a rock, who understands what I do without any resentment."

"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."

Like Jesse Tyler Ferguson, actress and New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon also married an influential activist civilian. According to City & State, Christine Marinoni owned a "lesbian coffee shop/bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn" in the mid-'90s, and after one of her employees was "a victim of a hate crime," she became active in advocating for LGBT issues.  

According to the Advocate, Nixon met and became friends with Marinoni in 2001, when both women worked on causes in education. At the time, Nixon was in a long-term relationship with Danny Mozes, the father of two of her children. They split up in 2003, and by 2004, Nixon and Marinoni were an item.

Nixon and Marinoni wed in 2012, according to People, after waiting three years following their engagement for same sex marriage to be legal in their home state of New York. Marinoni became a stay-at-home mom to both Nixon's kids with Mozes, as well as the son they had together in 2011, Max.

Eventually, Marinoni returned to work in the political sphere, taking a job within the New York Department of Education as "a special adviser for community partnerships," according to the New York Post. She resigned from the position in March 2018, presumably to alleviate any possible conflict of interest should she inevitably decide to contribute to Nixon's campaign.

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.

Seth Meyers currently hosts "Late Night with Seth Meyers," but it was thanks to his previous gig, "Saturday Night Live," that he found the love of his life. Speaking with Your Tango, Meyers revealed that he met his wife, attorney Alexi Ashe, at fellow SNL cast member Chris Kattan's wedding. Ashe was there with her sister, who "worked in the set design department of SNL." Meyers said it was love at first sight, and described Ashe as "a very smart woman, smarter than me." He also shared that she "works at the Brooklyn D.A.'s office," but that is a pretty humble description of his wife's credentials.

According to Human Rights First, Ashe has worked extensively in efforts to combat human trafficking. She's worked in the Special Victims and Human Trafficking Bureaus of the D.A.'s office and has served on the board of both the New York State Anti-Trafficking Coalition and Human Rights First. Her work within the justice system eventually paved the way for a career in human trafficking advocacy.

Speaking with the Vineyard Gazette of her pivot away from criminal prosecution, Ashe said, "It was really hard for me when a case was over to say goodbye and good luck and not know the next steps. I wanted so badly to be giving them services while also prosecuting their case. And so I'm not surprised that I now find myself as a service provider."

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."

It may seem like "The Biggest Loser" host Alison Sweeney's marriage to California Highway Patrolman David Sanov is one of the more unusual pairings on this list, and perhaps it would be, if say, they met after he pulled her over or something. But their love story is actually a pretty common one: They've know each other since they were little kids.

Speaking with Working Mother in 2010, the former "Days of Our Lives" star said they became acquainted because their parents worked together, but they didn't start dating until she was 21. "I totally had a crush on him when we were young," Sweeney said. After dating for two years, they tied the knot. "We have similar values and personal beliefs," she said. "But we're also opposites. I'm a little more optimistic. He's a realist. My general attitude is: It'll be fine; it'll work out. It infuriates him."

Sweeney expanded on the success of her marriage to Health in 2015, when she shared that she and Sarnov use their anniversary each year to analyze their relationship. "We kind of give each other a job evaluation, which sounds a little embarrassing!" she said, adding, "We talk about our three favorite things about the other person and then three things that we could work on." Okay, so maybe their relationship is a bit more unusual than most.

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 a bit of a stretch to say that "Wonder Woman" star Gal Gadot's husband, Yaron Varsano, has a "regular job," since he happens to be a real estate developer who sold his Tel Aviv hotel for more than $27 million in 2015, according to Globes. On top of that, as of this writing, he's listed as "self-employed" on Facebook, but he could just be taking a nice little self-financed sabbatical. Anyway, Varsano's technically not a celebrity, so we're including him on this list.

According to a 2016 Glamour interview, Gadot said she met Varsano "nearly 10 years ago through mutual friends at this very strange party in the Israeli desert." Like many others on this list, she said it was love at first sight — for him. "He told me on our second date he was serious and wasn't going to wait more than two years to ask me to marry him," Gadot said. Varsano did exactly that in 2008, although Gadot has never revealed the details of the proposal other than to say that it was "very special."  

Varsano once publicly shared his love for Gadot in a Facebook post celebrating their anniversary. "10 years have gone by, yet it feels like yesterday we first met... My heart will forever beat to the sound of our love," he wrote. Wow. Forget real estate, this guy has a future in poetry.

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."

Taylor Lautner attained full-fledged heartthrob status as sexy werewolf Jacob Black in the "Twilight" movies. While taking a break from acting in 2016, he met Taylor Dome and it was love at first sight. The two tied the knot in 2022, in an intimate ceremony in California's wine country.

‌Unlike Lautner, Dome's background isn't in showbiz, but healthcare. Since graduating with her nursing degree in 2019, Dome has worked as a registered nurse. "Yesterday was the end to a chapter of my life which has been the most challenging yet so rewarding," she wrote in the caption of a video from her graduation ceremony that she posted on Instagram. "Nursing has become one of my biggest passions and I can't wait to start working and saving lives!" she concluded. At the time, Lautner also took to Instagram to offer Dome his congratulations on graduating from nursing school. 

She shared even more about her career in a 2021 Instagram post, in celebration of Nurses Week. "Shout out to all the men and women who have dedicated their careers to helping others, I am so honored to work along side you!" she wrote, accompanying a photo of herself wearing scrubs. "If you know a nurse show them a little extra love this week," she added.

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.

Jennifer Lawrence married Cooke Maroney in 2019, in an elegant ceremony held at a grand mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. So who is Maroney? According to Cosmopolitan, he's a New York City art dealer who is also "a total enigma." His father, James Maroney, is also an art dealer — very likely why Lawrence's husband entered the same field.

Cosmo pointed out that Maroney attended New York University, where he majored in art history. After graduation, he was hired at Gagosian, an upscale Manhattan art gallery. As of late 2023, Maroney was serving as director at Gladstone 64, the Upper East Side location of the posh Gladstone Gallery', which represents an array of well-known artists. Among them are Carroll Dunham (father of "Girls" star Lena Dunham), Richard Prince, Anish Kapoor, and Matthew Barney (who previously dated singer Bjork).

Speaking with The Cut, a source from within the NYC art scene detailed Maroney's status in that world. "He's definitely respected. He's not a big player, but he's a player," the source said. "I'd say he understands what good art is, as opposed to a lot of art dealers who just like to go to parties and do deals. I know that he likes contemporary but I know he also appreciates modernism. I think he really has solid taste in art and he's a very good art dealer, and I expect a fruitful career out of him."

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.

Since 1966, country music legend Dolly Parton has been married to Carl Dean — who has remained entirely out of the spotlight throughout the decades that have passed. As Parton recalled during a Nashville concert (as reported by The Boot), Dean accompanied her to a music award show shortly after they wed; on their way home, Dean revealed how much he'd hated it. "Carl turned to me and said, 'Dolly, I want you to have everything you want, and I'm happy for you, but don't you ever ask me to go to another one of them dang things again!'" she quipped. 

While Parton travelled the world, entertaining millions, Dean remained back in Nashville, where he owned and operated his own asphalt paving business."He's sort of shy and quiet," Parton said of her husband in a 1977 interview with People. Explaining why she and Dean kept their marriage separate from her showbiz career, she added, "What we have together is so sweet and good that I'd never want it to get jumbled up with the other."

Rare photos of Dean were published by the Daily Mail in 2020, with the outlet describing him as a "retired business owner." The Mail also quoted a source who told the National Enquirer that Dean was pretty much a recluse. "He barely leaves the house and doesn't really interact with people unless he absolutely has to — the total opposite of Dolly," said the source.

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."

Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been married to Tasha McCauley since the two tied the knot in a top-secret 2014 ceremony. The previous year, the "3rd Rock from the Sun" alum appeared on "The Howard Stern Show," where he revealed he was in a relationship with a woman who wasn't involved with show business. "The girl that I'm with, she really doesn't want to be a part of it, and you can imagine not wanting to have that kind of scrutiny," he said, as reported by Us Weekly.

According to LinkedIn, McCauley attended Stanford, where she studied electrical engineering, and then attended Carnegie Mellon University, where she obtained a master's in robotics. In addition, she also has an MBA from USC's Marshall School of Business.

McCauley is CEO of GeoSim Systems, which develops 3D modelling systems for cities. She's also a member of the board of directors of OpenAI. McCauley is also co-founder of Fellow Robots, a Silicon Valley startup that was spawned by Singularity University back in 2011, with a goal of creating robotic solutions to aid the retail industry.

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.

Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves' husband, Cole Schafer also writes — not songs, mind you, but advertising copy. As LinkedIn noted, Schafer is the creative director and copyrighter of Honey Copy, his own Nashville-based copywriting agency, which focuses on writing for technology startups.

On his website, Schafer offers a description of himself. "I'm a multi-hyphenate writer slinging ink in a number of different genres ranging from poetry, short fiction, memoir and spoken word," he wrote. He also hosts a podcast, "Dreamland," and has published several volumes of poetry, under his nom de plume, January Black. 

In a 2022 blog post, Schafer shared his own philosophy of writing. "And so, if you're getting into writing to be well-liked, I think it's worthwhile to explore another profession," he wrote. "Because you don't become a writer to be well-liked. You become a writer to tell the truth; your truth. And, truth be told, the truth isn't always nice."

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."