While Greta Lee may be conflicted by the nature of her relationships in her film Past Lives, there is no doubt that her heart belongs to Russ Armstrong in real life.
The pair met at Northwestern University, where Lee studied musical theater and Armstrong earned a degree in Communication. She and Armstrong graduated in 2005 and 2006, respectively.
The twosome went on to tie the knot in September 2014 and have since become parents. They welcomed son Apollo Joosung in August 2016, while son Raphael Joobaek arrived in April 2019.
In 2019, Armstrong gushed about his growing family with Lee in a sweet tribute posted via social media. “Raising kids with a partner is a gamble,” Armstrong wrote, per Romper. “When you start dating someone in your 20s you’re generally not considering whether they can whip up a rocket out of a cardboard boxes. No parent is perfect, or very good, at first. I’m not. But I feel like I hit the lottery with you.”
Scroll through for a timeline of their relationship:
August 2016
Armstrong shared the news via Instagram that the couple had welcomed their first son, Apollo Joosung. “Greta and I are excited to announce the birth of our son, Apollo Joosung Armstrong. He was born on Korean Liberation Day, August 15th, 2016 at 12:30 pm, 8 lbs 10 ounces and 48.5 cm, healthy and screaming. Love this guy,” he wrote, per Romper.
April 2019
The duo made Apollo a big brother when they welcomed their second son, Raphael Joobaek.
March 2020
During an interview with Kinfolk, it was revealed that Armstrong and Lee attend couple’s therapy. “After we meet, Lee has to run to Brooklyn to go to couples therapy with her husband (they are doing great, they just go for maintenance), then pick up Apollo and Raphael,” Rachel Syme wrote. Lee told her, “My children for better or for worse are undeniably 98% of my existence right now.”
2020
The couple left their Brooklyn pad after a decade in 2020 and made the move to Los Angeles. Lee admitted to W Magazine in April 2022 that she always thought she was “never coming back” to her hometown in California — and now she lives less than 30 minutes away with Armstrong and their kids.
“Now the family of four raises three chickens who are given free range unless hawks or coyotes are circling nearby,” Vogue wrote in April 2023 of their new home.
During a February 2024 interview with The Cut, Lee said that the couple had considered getting goats for their home until she “Googled what they sound like, and they sound exactly like whining children.”
Instead, Lee said she’s raising three chickens and harvesting produce. “It’s a whole thing, trying to open up a Whole Foods at our house,” she said. “It feels like a holistic way to live for us with our kids and a good balance for me in this insanity.”
May 2023
Lee shared rare insight into raising their sons in a multicultural environment, telling Yahoo, “We are big advocates of giving them the same thing we eat. We eat a lot of rice. There’s a lot of soup going on. We’ll do ssam, which is like a Korean wrap where you get your veggies in. There’s something called ssamjang, which is a salty, fermented soybean paste. My oldest is a self-proclaimed vegetarian right now, so there’s tofu, there’s eggs.”
