Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor, Elton John and David Furnish, and More of Hollywood’s Gay Power Couples

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Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor, Elton John and David Furnish, and More of Hollywood's Gay Power Couples

Love is love! Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor, Elton John and David Furnish, and more famous queer couples have lived out their fairy-tale romances in the public eye. The American Horror Story actress was first linked to Taylor in 2015, and the pair have been going strong ever since. In January 2019, Paulson opened up about how her relationship with the Two and a Half Men alum began. "We met a very, very long time ago," Paulson said on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, joking that Taylor slid into her DMs. "I was with someone else ... and then there was, like, a Twitter thing that happened. We were doing a thing at Martha Plimpton's house, it was for an organization that she was working with, and we were both doing a PSA for it. We sort of breezed by one another and started following each other on Twitter." Since taking her relationship with Taylor public, Paulson has been candid about her "unconventional" personal life with the Emmy winner, who is 32 years her senior. "I do not want to be defined by who I share my bed, my home, my soul with," she told Town & Country in 2018. "My choices in life have been unconventional, and that's my business. But I do want to live responsibly and truthfully without hiding. It's complicated, because there is a lot of hate in this world, and a lot of good can come from quote-unquote normalizing something for people who don't see it as normal." [jwplayer jYfLSUsQ-l3ahXupL] The Ocean's Eight actress added: "Our relationship represents a certain amount of hope and risk. Maybe there's something brave in it. Maybe it encourages others to make brave choices. What else can I say? We love each other." For John and Furnish, who have been together since 1993, it was important to remain individuals even as they became such an iconic couple. The pair finally tied the knot in December 2014, after same-sex marriage was legalized in the U.K., and share two sons, Zachary and Elijah. "It's very important in any relationship that one partner doesn't lose themselves in the other, and that's very easy if you're involved with a celebrity," Furnish told the Observer in 2001. "They get so much attention and so much deference anyway, it would be very easy to just get swept up into being their other half. I had my own career, my own identity. The worst thing I could do was sacrifice that." Scroll down to learn more about Hollywood's gay power couples: [podcast_block]

Credit: Shutterstock (4)

Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor, Elton John and David Furnish, and More of Hollywood's Gay Power Couples

Love is love! Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor, Elton John and David Furnish, and more famous queer couples have lived out their fairy-tale romances in the public eye. The American Horror Story actress was first linked to Taylor in 2015, and the pair have been going strong ever since. In January 2019, Paulson opened up about how her relationship with the Two and a Half Men alum began. "We met a very, very long time ago," Paulson said on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, joking that Taylor slid into her DMs. "I was with someone else ... and then there was, like, a Twitter thing that happened. We were doing a thing at Martha Plimpton's house, it was for an organization that she was working with, and we were both doing a PSA for it. We sort of breezed by one another and started following each other on Twitter." Since taking her relationship with Taylor public, Paulson has been candid about her "unconventional" personal life with the Emmy winner, who is 32 years her senior. "I do not want to be defined by who I share my bed, my home, my soul with," she told Town & Country in 2018. "My choices in life have been unconventional, and that's my business. But I do want to live responsibly and truthfully without hiding. It's complicated, because there is a lot of hate in this world, and a lot of good can come from quote-unquote normalizing something for people who don't see it as normal." [jwplayer jYfLSUsQ-l3ahXupL] The Ocean's Eight actress added: "Our relationship represents a certain amount of hope and risk. Maybe there's something brave in it. Maybe it encourages others to make brave choices. What else can I say? We love each other." For John and Furnish, who have been together since 1993, it was important to remain individuals even as they became such an iconic couple. The pair finally tied the knot in December 2014, after same-sex marriage was legalized in the U.K., and share two sons, Zachary and Elijah. "It's very important in any relationship that one partner doesn't lose themselves in the other, and that's very easy if you're involved with a celebrity," Furnish told the Observer in 2001. "They get so much attention and so much deference anyway, it would be very easy to just get swept up into being their other half. I had my own career, my own identity. The worst thing I could do was sacrifice that." Scroll down to learn more about Hollywood's gay power couples: [podcast_block]

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Cynthia Nixon and Christine Marinoni

The Sex and the City alum began dating Marinoni in 2004 and got engaged five years later. "I don't really feel I've changed," Nixon told The Telegraph of her sexual identity in 2007. "I'd been with men all my life, and I'd never fallen in love with a woman. But when I did, it didn't seem so strange. I'm just a woman in love with another woman." The pair tied the knot in New York City in May 2012, one year after welcoming son Max Ellington. Nixon is also the mother of sons Samuel and Charles, whom she shares with ex Danny Mozes.

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Ricky Martin and Jwan Yosef

In January 2018, the couple took fans by surprise by announcing their marriage. "When I first saw him, I said, 'I am going to marry this guy.' And apparently, he said exactly the same thing," Martin told Attitude magazine in March 2018. "We know that we carry this flag and if we're going to carry this flag, let's sway this flag really loudly. Because at the end of the day, we're proud of who we are. Just being visible is a lot of help. That's my activism." The duo share four children: twins Matteo and Valentino, daughter Lucia and son Renn.

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Billy Porter and Adam Smith

Before they tied the knot in 2017, the Kinky Boots star viewed Smith as the one that got away. The couple met in 2009 and went their separate ways the following year after a brief fling. After five years of friendship, they rekindled their romance — and the rest is history. "It was so much fun and it was a whirlwind," Smith told Playbill of their nuptials in 2017. "But it all turned out more beautifully than I could ever imagine."

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Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Justin Mikita

The actor and lawyer first met at the gym (although they tell people it was "through mutual friends") and got engaged in Mexico in September 2012 after two years of dating. Ferguson and Mikita tied the knot on July 20, 2013, in a lavish ceremony officiated by screenwriter Tony Kushner in New York City. "We wanted to get married in New York because that’s where it’s legal, so we want to support the state that’s in support of us," the Modern Family star told Us Weekly of the big day. In July 2020, the pair welcomed their first child, son Beckett Mercer. The couple announced in May 2022 that they are expecting their second baby.

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Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor

After meeting years earlier, the American Crime Story actress and Taylor officially confirmed their romance in 2016. "If my life choices had to be predicted based on what was expected from me from a community on either side, that's going to make me feel really straitjacketed, and I don't want to feel that," Paulson told The New York Times that year. "What I can say absolutely is that I am in love, and that person happens to be Holland Taylor."

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Lance Bass and Michael Turchin

The couple met at a birthday party in Palm Springs, California, in 2010 and began dating in December the following year. "Right away, I knew I wanted to get to know him," Bass later told Brides magazine. "I had no idea it would lead to a romantic relationship." Bass popped the question to Turchin in August 2013 and they got married in December 2014. They announced in June 2021 that they were expecting a twin son and daughter via surrogate. Alexander and Violet arrived in October of that year.

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Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka

The How I Met Your Mother alum and the chef started dating in 2004. The couple proposed to each other in 2006 but didn't announce their engagement until June 2011, shortly after gay marriage was legalized in New York. In September 2014, Harris announced that he and Burtka tied the knot during a romantic getaway to Italy. The twosome welcomed twins Harper and Gideon in October 2010.

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Elton John and David Furnish

The couple, who have been together since 1993, were "instantly" attracted to one another when they met, John told Parade magazine in 2010. "Every Saturday for 16 years, we've sent each other a card," he said at the time. The pair welcomed their first son Zachary in 2010. Their second son Elijah was born three years later.

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Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi

A match made in powerhouse heaven! DeGeneres is the queen of the talk show realm, and her wife starred in Arrested Development and ABC's hit show Scandal. The pair wed during an intimate ceremony in 2008 and have supported each other each day since. "Being her wife is the greatest thing that I am," the comedian wrote on their anniversary in 2017. 

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George Takei and Brad Altman

The Star Trek actor and his longtime partner agreed to live long and prosper together in September 2008 during a multicultural ceremony at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles after being together for 21 years. The pair exchanged vows they wrote themselves, during which Takei called Altman an "organized, detail-obsessed, punctuality-driven control freak."

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Jim Parsons and Todd Spiewak

The Big Bang Theory alum had proposed to then-boyfriend Spiewak days after he took home the 2010 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his role as Sheldon Cooper. Though the actor had not previously spoken out about his sexuality, he never attempted to hide the fact that he and Spiewak were a couple. They got married in New York City in May 2017.

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Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent

Things have certainly changed since Berkus proposed to Brent during a trip to Machu Picchu, Peru, in April 2013. The couple married in May 2014 at the New York Public Library. They welcomed their daughter, Poppy Brent-Berkus, via surrogate in March 2015 and had son Michael Brent-Berkus three years later.