Niecy Nash & wife Jessica Betts are the first same-sex couple on the cover of Essence #PinkInOurLives

TV star Niecy Nash has made history along with her wife, singer Jessica Betts, for becoming the first gay couple on the cover of Essence magazine.

“Thank you @essence for choosing The Betts as your FIRST same sex couple to cover you magazine!” Nash wrote on Instagram beside a photo of the historic cover. She also declared the moment a part of “Herstory.”

In the Essence story, Nash spoke about her deep love for Betts, and how she doesn’t label her sexuality. “The least of my attraction is gender. What I was and am still attracted to is Jessica’s soul. She was the most beautiful soul I had ever met in my life. Now that I’ve experienced it, I can’t imagine going through life without it.” The article described them as “into each other in a way that you rarely see in couples after high school.”

“We’re extremely compatible.” Nash said. “Sometimes you can be attracted to somebody but don’t have a lot in common. But we have such a natural compatibility that we can be around each other, work together and hang out all day. If there was a 25th hour, we would be right up in it.”

In 2020, Nash – an Emmy Award-winner who is best known for her roles on Reno 911!, Getting On, Selma, and Claws, as well as for hosting the interior design show Clean House – came out in an Instagram post that also announced her marriage to Betts.

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This is Nash’s third marriage – she divorced minister Don Nash in 2007 and engineer Jay Tucker in 2020. In a 2021 interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Nash talked about her experience of coming out. “A lot of people say, ‘Oh you came out.’ And I said, ‘Well, from out of where?’ I wasn’t anywhere to come out of. I wasn’t living a sexually repressed life when I was married to men. I just loved them when I loved them. And now I love her yeah.”