Lena Waithe tells John Legend about her secret wedding on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. (YouTube)
US actor and screenwriter Lena Waithe has revealed she secretly married her long-term partner Alana Mayo at a famous San Francisco gay monument.
Speaking on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Friday (November 15), Waithe announced that she is officially a married woman.
“We snuck and did it, you know,” she told John Legend, who served as the guest host for the episode, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “We didn’t make any announcements.”
Waithe and Mayo dated for three years before getting engaged on Thanksgiving in 2017.
“We went to San Francisco. We went to the courthouse. Got married right in front of Harvey Milk’s bust. It was her idea, as all good things are,” Waithe said.
“And she was just driving and she saw the courthouse and she said, ‘We should get married there.’ And I said, ‘Cool, I’m down.’”
Waithe is known for starring in Netflix comedy-drama series ‘Master of None’.
In 2017, she became the first black woman to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series after writing the show’s ‘Thanksgiving’ episode, which was loosely based on her personal story of coming out as a lesbian to her mother.
Mrs. Lena D Waithe from now on 💍🏳️🌈 pic.twitter.com/Xf5J2xfT80
— Lena Waithe (@LenaWaithe) November 16, 2019
The first same-sex marriage ceremonies in America were carried out in 2004 at the courthouse in San Francisco where Waithe and Mayo tied the knot.
The San Francisco courthouse is where the late gay-rights activist and politician Harvey Milk was assassinated.
Following Milk’s death, it became a symbol for the LGBT+ community and saw protestors riot outside the courthouse demanding LGBT+ rights.
“It was a humbling day, you know, to marry someone so amazing,” Waithe said. “But also to really appreciate all the work that so many people have put in for us to be able to do that.”
“Absolutely, it was a struggle to make that happen,” Legend said. “It’s beautiful that you can live your full truth and be in love and declare it to the world.
“Everybody should be able to do that,” Waithe said.