The Two Reasons Joy Behar Waited So Long To Marry Steve Janowitz

Joy Behar's second husband, Steve Janowitz, was never a regular on "The View," and as far as guest appearances go, the most viewers ever got was a glimpse of his arm when he accidentally walked in on her filming an episode from home. But despite his elusive nature, we've come to know him thanks to the little anecdotes and tidbits Behar let us in on over the years.

Behar and Janowitz are longtime lovers, having tied the knot in 2011. They were already together for nearly three decades at the time, so a wedding was a long time coming. In fact, their 2011 nuptials was their second attempt at getting hitched, as the comedian called off their supposed wedding in 2009. "I'm getting my own talk show on HLN, so I don't have to get married anymore," she joked at the Friars Club (via People). "Actually, I got cold feet again, so I don't know what I'm going to do. It's off the table. What'll happen is, when I decide to do it, I'll do it, and then everybody will know I did it. I can't make up my mind." Make no mistake, Janowitz was totally chill about it, so no split of some sort occurred. "Steve is fine," she assured. "He says, 'Do whatever you want.'" And besides, Behar has always referred to him as her "spousal equivalent" anyway.

Behar and Janowitz's decision to walk down the aisle after 29 years was a source of wonder for many. The host once joked to The New York Times that they only did it so she could grace the cover of Brides' AARP edition, but as it turns out, she had quite a few reasons for delaying it — legitimate reasons at that.

Joy Behar is a vocal ally of the LGBTQ+ community and has always championed their rights the best way she could. "I identify with the fact that gay people, once they are 'out,' have to deal with that — they want to be honest, and yet people are out to get them," she said in an interview with Gay City News.

She is also a staunch proponent of gay marriage and admitted that the struggles queer people face were what eventually pushed her to tie the knot with Steve Janowitz. "One of my in-laws had a partner who was very ill and dying in the hospital. And my in-law was not allowed to make decisions for her partner because they were not legally married. And I thought, "I don't want that,'" she recalled, adding that it was "ridiculous" and she didn't want the same thing to happen to her and Janowitz years down the line. "That was one of the main reasons I wanted to get married."

And when gay marriage was legalized in New York in 2011, they finally took the plunge. "It did have an influence on me," she said in an episode of "The View" that same year (via Digital Spy). "It brought to my consciousness why gays needed to get married. And I thought it was a good reason for me to get married. And so did Steve, so we did it."

Speaking of in-laws, Joy Behar also once quipped that she didn't want to deal with them, hence the decades-long delay of her wedding with Steve Janowitz. Speaking on the "Rachael Ray Show" in 2011 (via She Knows), the Daytime Emmy winner dished: "I waited until all the parents were dead. So I have no in-laws at all. He has none and I have none. 'Cause marriage is mostly about in-laws, I find. They always want you to visit them and come for lasagna."

On "The View," she supplied even more reasons for the long wait, and apparently, it includes her getting "embarrassed asking about senior discounts for her 'boyfriend'" and that Janowitz has had enough of being called "that old guy" by her family. Oh, and she wanted Barbara Walters to get off her back, too, as the late news anchor was apparently "bugging" her to get hitched.

Seriously speaking, though, Behar had a change of heart due to practicality's sake. "We waited so long because I had been married before, and I didn't really see the point of getting married," she told Marlo Thomas in an interview. "I did it because as you get older you want to make sure that there's somebody there for you emotionally and legally... Because you know, if anything happens, you need your spouse."