Kerry Washington is quite private about her family, though she is married to pro football player-turned-actor Nnamdi Asomugha.
The couple met backstage while Washington was starring in her first Broadway play, and they got married in a secret ceremony in 2013, according to her memoir.
Washington and Asomugha had their first child together in 2014 and welcomed their second two years later. Washington is also stepmother to Asomugha’s teenage daughter.
The former “Scandal” star is notoriously tight-lipped about her marriage with Asomugha, but she shared intimate details about him and their relationship in her 2023 memoir, “Thicker Than Water.”
Nnamdi Asomugha is a football pro turned actor
Asomugha led a sports-centered life before becoming a Hollywood actor and producer.
He played college football for the California Golden Bears and spent 11 years in the NFL, playing for teams in Oakland, Philadelphia and San Francisco. He hung up his cleats in 2013.
Toward the end of his football career, Asomugha started appearing on some TV shows, such as “The Game” in 2008, “Friday Night Lights” in 2009, “Leverage” in 2010 and “Cubed” in 2011.
His breakout role, though, came in 2020 with “Sylvie’s Love.” He starred alongside Tessa Thompson in the film, which earned an Emmy nomination for outstanding television movie. Some of his producing credits include “The Banker” and “Harriet.”
The couple first met backstage at a Broadway show
Washington wrote in her book that she met Asomugha while she was in her first Broadway play, “Race.” She originated the role of Susan in 2009 and played the character through June 2010 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
They were both represented by CAA at the time, so the talent agency arranged for Asomugha to meet Washington and the cast backstage while he was in New York visiting friends and seeing shows.
They could have met earlier, though: “Later I would be reminded that although I’d never met Nnamdi before, he and I had cohosted a fundraiser in Northern California for Kamala Harris’ attorney general campaign,” she wrote in her book. “We had both been unable to attend the event but had lent our names in support of what I was certain would be a stellar political career.”
“But that night at the Barrymore, we finally did meet, and I felt dizzied by the calm and pure authenticity of his presence. I still am.”
They had a secret wedding
The couple worked hard to keep their 2013 wedding day out of the public eye, Washington wrote in her memoir.
They had it at a friend’s house, the wedding planner was under “strict confidentiality,” verbal invitations went out “just prior” to the ceremony and the hired vendors thought the event they were servicing was a family reunion. Plus, the wedding dress designer told his team the gown was for “the Moroccan premiere of ‘Scandal.'”
“For months I had been wearing my engagement ring secretly pinned inside my clothing for fear that if people knew we were engaged, it would be impossible to have a wedding away from public spectacle,” she wrote.
Instead, the privacy gave them space to have family members involved in every detail.
“As Nnamdi and I planned our wedding, we were aware that this singular day was not just a party but an opportunity to establish the culture of our marriage and our lives together,” she wrote. “We wanted the details of the day to reflect where we came from, who we were, and the future we hoped to build together.”
Her cousin played the music that Washington walked down the aisle to, Asomugha’s cousin DJed the reception and his sister officiated, according to the memoir. Asomugha’s younger sister designed and made traditional Nigerian gowns, and Washington’s father walked her halfway down the aisle while she walked the rest of the way herself.
Asomugha is the first person she told about her biological father
Washington said she realized her husband has reminded her she is where she belongs after learning the man who raised her is not her biological father.
The first person she told the news to was her husband, she said during an appearance on TODAY with Hoda & Jenna in 2023.
“He was the first person that I told after my parents told me, and so I came home and realized that as disorienting as the news was — as sort of confused and adrift as I felt knowing that my family wasn’t who I thought we were — when I saw him, I knew who this family was,” Washington said. “I knew that no matter what I was feeling with my parents in that moment, I belonged here.”
Washington learned that her biological father is a sperm donor and not the man who raised her after sharing with her parents that she agreed to appear on “Finding Your Roots,” according to her memoir.
They were initially excited but eventually became unnerved when a DNA test was mentioned, Washington wrote. Her parents later sat her down and told her about her paternity and none of them ended up doing the show.
After their conversation, Washington wrote that she returned to her house where her husband was fiddling around in the closet.
“When he finally appeared, the sight of him was like a buoy, a lifesaving beacon of belonging, a desert island after decades adrift,” she wrote in the book.
They ‘try to be more open’ when parenting
The couple have welcomed two children together, Isabelle Amarachi, born in 2014, and Caleb Kelechi, born in 2016. Asomugha is also a dad to a teenage daughter, whom Washington has embraced as her own.
Washington, when referred to as “a mother of two“ on TODAY in 2018, corrected the record. “I am a mother of three,” she said.
Washington wrote about feeling pressure to be perfect when she was growing up and in college. She told Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager how that experience influences her approach to parenting with Asomugha.
“We just try to be more open. It was obviously very different conversations with our three kids,” she said, later adding: “We meet them where they are by being led by their questions.”
Fostering a home of open dialogue is one way it works, she said.
