Sheryl Lee Ralph is setting the record straight on her long-distance marriage.
via People:
After rumors swirled online that after 18 years of marriage, the Abbot Elementary star, 66, and her husband, Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent Hughes, 67, were finally shacking up together in Philadelphia, Ralph spoke to ET to clarify their living arrangement.
“Vincent and I have been married going on 19 years,” Ralph told the outlet at Elle’s Women in Hollywood event in Los Angeles on Tuesday. “We’ve been together 21 years. Abbott is shot in Los Angeles. My husband, as a senator, is always in his capitol [Harrisburg, Penn.], so I don’t know what magic people think we’re gonna do.”
“We see each other on the average of every two weeks,” she explained. “And everybody who questions that I say, guess what? We’re still married!”
The pair tied the knot in 2005. When they met, Ralph was living in L.A., while Hughes was in Philadelphia.
The Emmy winner previously told the Philadelphia Inquirer how she heads to the City of Brotherly Love regularly.
“First of all, 20 years, keeping this marriage together, you have to be together some time,” she told the outlet. “Vincent is not able to leave the state the way I can leave the state. In fact, in 20 years of our being together, I’m going to say my husband has maybe been in California, maybe, 25 times. That means I’m in Philadelphia every two weeks.”
She also explained that fans often wonder why she’s in Philadelphia: “It’s always like, ‘What are you doing there?’ ‘Um, I’m married to Sen. Hughes. I live here.’ “
The Dreamgirls actress recently shared with AARP The Magazine that during the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, they were “under the same roof.”
“We were together 24/7, and it was great, ” she shared. “I thought, ‘Wow, I like this man.'”
Ralph also shared how the two began their long-distance relationship, noting how she kept her children, Etienne Maurice and Ivy Coco Maurice, close to their father, her first husband Eric Maurice.
“My kids stayed close to their father, but they also had a friend they could talk to and confide in, and that was Vincent,” explained Ralph. “When we met, I had these young children, and I appreciated that he did not try to insert himself as their father. He had his own children.”
Whatever works for them, works for us.
