We think we know so much about our favorite celebrity couples, but they sometimes astonish us with their mysterious ways. Kerry Washington went to major lengths to keep her romance with husband Nnamdi Asomugha out of the limelight, including pinning her engagement ring to her undergarments.
Washington and the former NFL player are looking forward to their 11th wedding anniversary in June, and the fiercely private actress recently opened up about the creative ways she protected their relationship from the public’s prying eyes.
The super secretive couple have been rarely seen together, so when they tied the knot in 2013 in a private ceremony, it was easy to forget that they had been dating for four years since meeting at a Broadway play starring Washington called “Race.” The award-winning actress and Asomugha dated during a “really crazy time” in their lives, she said. She was squarely in the public eye, fresh off a broken engagement with actor David Moscow that was heavily chronicled in the press.
Meanwhile, during their courtship, Asomugha landed on the cover of “Sports Illustrated,” He was selected for multiple Pro Bowl and All-Pro teams and had already cemented his position as one of the greatest Oakland Raiders of all time. It would seem impossible to keep their engagement low-key, but Washington had some unusual tricks up her sleeve.
“I used to pin my engagement ring to my undergarments because I loved my ring so much, so I would sleep in it at night, and then in the morning, I would pin it to my undergarments so that nobody knew we were engaged,” she explained during a recent appearance on SiriusXM’s “This Life of Mine with James Corden.”
“I think it’s really hard when people have a lot to say about your relationship, and I had been in a really public engagement that when it ended, I was in the unfortunate position of being on the cover of a bridal magazine and it was a bridal magazine that came out quarterly, so for three months I walked around and I thought, ‘I think I’m done talking about my personal life in the public,'” she revealed to Corden.
Washington is still fiercely private, rarely posting about her husband on social media. In one flashback photo on her Instagram, Washington and Asomugha are pictured with Barack and Michelle Obama in a sweet birthday post to the president. Yet, one of her fans wondered, “Is that Kerry Washington’s hubby? What a babe…”
The Golden Globe winner has been interviewed countless times since getting married, and mentions of Asomugha are few and far between — but always extremely thoughtful and he is clearly her rock.
“I’m in my immediate truth with [him]. Those mirrors are important because they help me get back to myself,” she said in a March 2023 interview with “Marie Claire” to discuss her book “Thicker Than Water.” In her memoir, Washington bravely opened up about past suicidal thoughts, learning that her dad isn’t her biological father, disordered eating, and childhood trauma, and how she transcended those struggles to embrace “her truest self and with it a deeper sense of belonging.”
Though Washington is sharing more of her story with the public, she is still determined to keep the lives of her children and husband sacred. She has never posted a picture of her and Asomugha’s three kids on social media. They have a 17-year-old daughter from Asomugha’s previous relationship and share a daughter, Isabelle, 8, and a son, Caleb, 6.
This makes her candid interview on SiriusXM all the more surprising. She did reveal a few inspiring tips on how she approaches motherhood. “In our home, we really value honesty — it’s something we think about a lot. We also don’t want to overwhelm our kids, so there’s no bad questions [and] there’s no wrong questions. We try to build a culture in our home where it’s OK to ask questions,” she stated.
When asked by Corden to pick a possession that defines her, Washington referred to some seashells she collected on her honeymoon after her 2013 wedding. The two stayed at a resort on an island off the coast of Zanzibar, which she said were “the happiest two weeks of my life.” Her reasoning for choosing the shell collection is a sweet declaration of love:
“Whenever I look at that collection of shells, it reminds me of the space that we gave ourselves to start our life together as a couple in this really sacred way,” she said. “You know, having this sort of very private, secretive wedding and then just jumping off into this very remote place to really begin our lives together. I love that. I love that jar. It always makes me feel so grateful for the life that I have.”
Much like her “Scandal” character Olivia Pope, Washington loves a little mystery — and it looks like it’s working.
