Author Roxane Gay will be married to writer and artist Debbie Millman in a Jewish ceremony officiated by feminist icon Gloria Steinem, Gay announced on July 9.
Although the couple officially married in a civil ceremony earlier this year, Gay, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of “Bad Feminist” and “Hunger,” broke the news of the Jewish nuptials, which will take place sometime in 2021 in a Twitter live broadcast, which was watched by over 35,000 viewers.
“I am not super religious but Debbie is Jewish and so Gloria Steinem is actually marrying us next year,” Gay announced. “It will be semi-religious. We’re going to do some of the traditions — the chuppah, the breaking of the glass and so on.”
Gay and Millman became engaged in November 2019, and made the announcement via Instagram.
“I met a girl who loves to write and is really into Beyoncé,” Millman announced over a carousel of photos of Gay. “We went on some dates; we fell in love. And now she is my fiancé.”
“Debbie actually pursued me for more than a year,” Gay said on her livestream. “She started by inviting me onto her podcast Design Matters and I told her to get in touch with my publicist. Then my publicist blew her off and she sent me another letter when “Hunger” came out. It was a really beautiful letter and I don’t think I responded.”
Things changed when Millman held an event with a mutual friend. “Afterward, they were having drinks and my friend mentioned me as a mentor,” Gay continued. “She said ‘Oh my God, I have a crush on Roxane! But I know she has a person. What’s going on there?’ And my friend said ‘Well, yeah, she has a person but there’s some flexibility there. You should go for it.’ So she sent me an email asking if I would like to go out on a proper date. It kind of took my breath away. But I wrote back, ‘Sure.'”
Gay said they’ve been together ever since. They initially planned to have their wedding on Oct. 10, but the pandemic upended their plans and the duo decided to elope and have their civil ceremony. While they did not share the exact date of the ceremony, Gay tweeted:
“We pushed the fancy part to 2021 and went to an office park in Encino and got hitched under a plastic chuppah!”
I wrote this. Also, @debbiemillman and I eloped because our wedding was gonna be on 10/10/20 but then a pandemic happened so we pushed the fancy part to 2021 and went to an office park in Encino and got hitched under a plastic chuppah! 🤓 https://t.co/dc23KgzuNE
— roxane gay (@rgay) July 3, 2020
Steinem, who also is Jewish, has a long history of leading Jewish, yet feminist ceremonies.
For 20 years, the feminist icon has held “sister seders,” where she invites women over for Passover. In 1976, she attended what likely was the first seder in history to be held by women only, re-envisioning the holiday through a feminist lens. The story of the four sons was changed to four daughters, the four questions revised to reflect women’s questions and 10 extra plagues that drain modern women were added, such as self-loathing, envy and sexist discrimination.
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