Idina Menzel and ex-husband Taye Diggs publicly faced struggles as a result of their interracial relationship.
“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,” Menzel, 52, said during the Tuesday, October 17, episode of Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s “Dinner’s on Me” podcast. “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.”
Menzel and Diggs, now 52, met in 1996 while costarring in Rent, where she made her Broadway debut as Maureen Johnson and Diggs, already a stage veteran, portrayed Benjamin “Benny” Coffin III. By the time Menzel and Diggs left Rent, his acting career exploded.
“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,” Menzel said on Tuesday’s podcast episode. “And 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.”
She added: “You know, it’s the ‘Can we get a picture of him by himself?’ [when we were on the red carpet together].”
Menzel and Diggs got married in 2003, nearly six years before they welcomed son Walker, now 13.
While Menzel felt like she was in Diggs’ shadow, she got her chance in the spotlight when she landed the role of Elphaba in Broadway’s Wicked in 2003. Diggs then became her No. 1 cheerleader.
“He was relieved, probably [when I got attention for Wicked], and happy and proud of me,” she noted to Ferguson, 47. “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.”
Menzel and Diggs ultimately separated in 2013 after 10 years of marriage. Their divorce was finalized two years later in January 2015, and they’ve since become amicable coparents.
“We never make a wrong step because we’re always thinking of Walker first,” Diggs exclusively told Us Weekly in July 2020 of their “easy” coparenting dynamic. “We both love Walker and want what’s best for him. I think once you do that, it allows for things to be a little bit easier.”
Menzel later married “love of my life” Aaron Lohr in September 2017.
“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,” she quipped on Tuesday. “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.”
