Niecy Nash married Jessica Betts last year after their friendship evolved into a romantic partnership.
Nash, 51, recalled how she and Bett’s friendship came from an “unexpected” place.
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“If you are open to it, love can come from unexpected places,” she said Friday on TODAY with Hoda & Jenna. “And I’ve never had a dear friend and then ended up dating them, so this is my first time.”
“I’ve never had a friendship that turned into a relationship,” she added. “So I know that there is great added value to having friendship as the foundation.”
Nash, calls Betts her “hersband,” said she is the happiest she’s ever been.
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“This is, by far, the greatest love of my life,” she said. “And part of that is because, for me, it’s the first time that I feel fully seen.”
Nash, who said her romance with Betts shocked her three kids, said it’s important to understand that a healthy and happy relationship will be difficult but it will be easier to navigate with the right partner.
“We struggle in love relationships, whether we’ve been hurt before,” she said.
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“Now, we don’t want to do it again or we want it, but we try to control it because there’s pain attached to it. Just because you love someone, that’s not the last time you’re going to cry. That’s not the last time your feelings are going to be hurt. It just means that if you’re lucky, you chose someone who will restore you very quickly.”
Previously, Nash had been married twice to men and had known Betts for nearly five years when their friendship developed into something more. Many fans and followers were shell shocked over the news.
“I mean, a lot of people say that, like, ‘Oh you came out,’ and I said, ‘Well, from out of where?’” she told Ellen DeGeneres in March. “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.”
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