Her best year yet! Penn Badgley shared a heartfelt tribute to his wife, Domino Kirke, in honor of her 32nd birthday on Tuesday, December 17.
“Happy birthday, Dom,” the You star, 33, captioned an Instagram gallery featuring a video of the London-born singer laughing in the snow and a black-and-white photo of the couple during a candlelit dinner. “A super-brief review of your invisible qualities: A truly radiant soul, you seem to spark alight almost everyone you meet, like a 99% success rate. It’s really impressive, and quite mysterious. You encourage others to be honest, and brave, and gentle, and expansive. Your great capacity for empathy is obvious, something anyone can get warm by like a glowing stove. Your desire to be of service to others is miraculous. It is in your DNA. In pictures as a very young child, you exude it—a great care and sweetness; an invitation.”
He concluded, “You make others happy by you. For me, it is a joy to witness you when you are happy. For you, I always hope to be a source of joy. I’m really glad we’re married.”
Badgley’s former Gossip Girl costar Kelly Rutherford also wished Kirke a happy birthday in the comments section, adding red heart emojis and calling the post “so beautiful.”
The doula, for her part, shared a photo of the actor smiling on her Instagram Stories as they ate breakfast at the Brooklyn luncheonette Gertie. “@gertienyc for the win! HBD to me!” she wrote.
Us Weekly broke the news of the notoriously private pair’s romance in July 2014, with a source revealing at the time, “They’ve been dating for a while. They have a number of mutual friends. It is a very mature and free relationship. Domino is a great girl for him, being a musician. Their interests align.”
Badgley, who previously dated his Gossip Girl costar Blake Lively and Zoë Kravitz, quietly married Kirke at a Brooklyn courthouse in February 2017. They had a second ceremony with family and friends that June.
Kirke, whose sister is Girls alum Jemima Kirke, told Us exclusively in October that the Stepfather star is “a really good stepdad” to her 10-year-old son from a previous relationship, Cassius. “He doesn’t have to be ‘Dad’ so he can have more fun with him. It’s really nice,” she said. “He takes care of him really well.”
