Idina Menzel has claimed Taye Diggs faced “disappointment” over their interracial marriage.
The Frozen actress made her Broadway debut in Rent in 1996 where she met the Snowpiercer star, who was already a stage veteran, and she admitted the reaction to their eventual romance was “very complicated,” but not because of their different levels of success at the time.
Menzel – who split from Diggs in 2013 after 10 years of marriage – said on the “Dinner’s on Me” podcast: “It’s very complicated. I mean, [we’re] very supportive of each other always. [I’m] so excited for him. The thing that came into play more — and he’s talked about it too — is the interracial aspect of it. Because when you’re in the theater, it’s just not a thing, like, we all love each other and sleep with each other and [are] best friends with whoever wants to be. When you leave that cocoon, and now, in his case … he’s on the cover of Essence and Ebony and being interviewed by all these Black journalists and I think he had his own stuff to deal with that. … It seemed like there was disappointment in the community with him because he was married to [a] white, Jewish girl from some show we don’t even remember, and so, I took that on too. That’s stuff that we had to deal with. It was less about being successful and more about that kind of stuff. You know, it’s the ‘Can we get a picture of him by himself?’ [when we were on the red carpet together].”
Menzel stepped out of Diggs’ shadow when she landed the role of “Elphaba” in Wicked in 2003 and the 52-year-old actor – with whom she has 13-year-old son Walker – was “so supportive.”
“He was relieved, probably [when I got attention for ‘Wicked’], and happy and proud of me. He was always so supportive and probably relieved, so he didn’t have to feel like he was overshadowing me in some way or taking up too much space,” she said.
The 52-year-old star is now married to Aaron Lohr and she admits she gets “embarrassed” by how much he likes to show off his pride in her.
“When we go on the red carpet together, sometimes I take him with me because it’s nice to have someone with you and he looks great in suits, but sometimes he talks too much about me. He brags about me to the point where it feels like a parent, like, ‘Mom, enough!’ … He’s so proud, but it’s very embarrassing to me,” she quipped.
