Colman Domingo has had quite the banner year, with major performances in The Color Purple and Rustin, the latter of which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, thanks to his stirring performance as civil-rights and gay-rights activist Bayard Rustin.
But besides his slew of high-profile roles, Domingo has also been in the news lately because of a recent visit to The Graham Norton Show, where he retold the story of how he met his husband, Raúl. Domingo’s romantic story quickly went viral, and fans have become obsessed with the couple’s serendipitous connection. Now, we can’t blame them if they’re aching to know more.
Ahead, we break down everything we know about Raúl Domingo and his relationship with the longtime star of stage and screen. This pair’s love story is one for the books.
Raúl is a producer and director.
Domingo’s husband is a talented creative in many senses, and works in the entertainment industry as well. In fact, Raúl cowrote and codirected the animated short New Moon, in which Colman voices the Storyteller. The 2022 film, which follows a mother and son who see their dreams illuminated by a new moon in their backyard, was even short-listed for an Oscar.
Raúl attended the director’s program at the Austin School of Film shortly before co-founding Edith Productions with Colman. This company has produced New Moon, 2023’s Sing Sing, which starred Colman, and the upcoming It’s What’s Inside. According to IMDb, Raúl “oversees all Edith projects and develops a wide variety of content for his banner.”
Raúl has an eye for fashion.
Colman may be known for his showstopping red-carpet ensembles, but Raúl has quite the eye for fashion, too. In fact, he’s worked with a number of luxury brands, like Lanvin and Max Mara, and has even been hired as a costume designer.
In a joint interview Colman and Raúl did with GQ in 2021, the author noted that the first summer the two were together, Raúl ended up taking a job as an assistant costumer designer on the set—in Alaska—just so he could be closer to Colman. Now that’s love.
He is also an artist and a pilot.
Filmmaking and fashion aren’t Raúl’s only passions. He is also an artist who specializes in oil painting, according to his bio on the Edith Productions website. The description also notes: “If he is not in his art studio, you can see Raúl high above Southern California piloting his Cessna.”
Is there anything this man can’t do?
He met Colman at Walgreens.
If you need proof of love at first sight, just consider the Domingos’ origin story. The pair had their first encounter at a Bay Area drugstore, when they happened to lock eyes while Colman was walking in and Raúl was leaving. Raúl was with a friend who dragged him away, so the two didn’t get a chance to talk, but fate couldn’t keep them apart.
Colman recounted the entire story during a visit to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in 2022, saying, “Okay, you gotta picture 17 years ago, I was walking down the street going into a Walgreens in Berkeley, California. We passed each other. We never spoke.” But, the actor said, in that instant, he simply “felt something.”
He went on: “A few days later, I’m on Craigslist trying to buy a used computer to help with my writing. I went to the home screen and you know, they have ‘missed connections,’ things like ads, so I would read them because I’m a romantic. I go to the second page of missed connections and it said, ‘Saw you outside of Walgreens, Berkeley.’ ” That made the actor stop in his tracks.
That message was from Raúl, who had posted it a mere two hours earlier. Not long after, the pair ended up going on a date at a bar in San Francisco, and spent the night together. While telling the story again on The Graham Norton Show, Colman recalled ending the night by saying to Raúl, “I think I love you and you’re about to change my life.” And boy, was he right.
Raúl would end up proposing to Colman when they moved to New York City together.
Raúl and Colman tied the knot in 2014.
As if their Walgreens encounter weren’t romantic enough, the Domingos have what is possibly an even better wedding story. No, they didn’t get married in the retail chain’s fluorescent aisles—they threw a party in California in 2014, inviting 25 guests who believed it was merely a house party. As each attendee came through the door, they were greeted with the surprise message “Welcome to our wedding.”
Details on the ceremony are pretty scarce, but in the GQ interview, Colman revealed that he wore a Hawaiian shirt to the ceremony, and that everyone danced until four in the morning.
