Harriet Star Leslie Odom Jr. and His Wife Nicolette Robinson Met on Broadway (2024)

• Nicolette Robinson is a Broadway and TV star who just so happens to be married to Leslie Odom Jr., the star of 2019's Harriet and, of course, Hamilton.
• Robinson made history when she was cast as Jenna in the hit musical Waitress in 2018, becoming the show's first woman of color to take on the lead role.
• With Odom Jr., she is also mom to their 2-year-old daughter, Lucille Ruby.

Broadway has had its fair share of real-life couples to admire: Audra McDonald and Will Swenson, Orfeh and Andy Karl, and Phillipa Soo and Steven Pasquale among them. Our latest favorites? Nicolette Robinson and Leslie Odom Jr., the Tony-winning star of Harriet opposite Cynthia Erivo, in theaters on November 1. Robinson made her Broadway debut alongside Al Roker last fall when she was cast as Jenna, the lead role in Waitress, making her the first woman of color to play the part since the show opened in 2015. She starred in the show until December 2018—and since hasn't stopped making waves.

You may have seen Nicolette Robinson on TV.

Robinson is no stranger to the small screen. She also appeared on TV shows such as Perfect Couples, Hart of Dixie, and The Affair before making her Broadway debut. In addition, she previously starred Off Broadway in 2014's Invisible Thread and 2015's Brooklynite.

Naturally, she and Odom Jr. met in the theater world.

In an interview with Broadway.com, Robinson explained that she met Odom Jr., who she calls "Les," on the set of Once On This Island. "It was not a romantic thing at first. It was really just a human connection like, ‘Wow, I need to be around this person all the time.’ We stayed in touch after the show and started dating pretty soon afterwards," Robinson said. "We didn’t know if the first date was the first date, but it ended up being the first date. None of us were saying that it was a date, but then it for sure was a date when he kissed me at the end of the night.” The two married on December 1, 2012.

They share a daughter—and she may be the cutest baby alive.

No, really. Robinson and Odom Jr. welcomed daughter Lucille Ruby on April 23, 2017, and the cuteness speaks for itself.

Both Robinson and Odom Jr. have touched on how they hope to create a better future for their daughter. For Robinson, she wants to show her daughter that she worked for everything she has while also being a great mom. "Motherhood has taught me about discovering the balance of being with your child but also fulfilling that need that you have. I hope that she sees that I’m doing what I really love to do," she told Broadway.com. "Hopefully that’ll push her to do the things that she wants too. When she comes to the theater, there’s a giant picture of me outside the door, and she goes, ‘Mamma!’"

In a move that we're sure will inspire little Lucille, Odom Jr. told OprahMag.com that he hopes to tell more stories about Black people—and Black women in particular. "I think the biggest reason why we haven’t seen too many films lead by black women at the center of it is because for some reason, there was this data that Hollywood had that said those stories don’t make money—that Black stories don’t make money, and certainly a Black story with a female lead won’t make any money," he said.

He continued, "We’ve seen in the last five, six, seven years—thanks to the incredible work of Jordan Peele, Ryan Cougler, Tyler Perry, Lee Daniels—we’ve seen that be proven to be a falsehood, a lie, that’s not true. We show up to see our stories and it’s not only us that show up. People will show up to see stories that are well told about Black life."

She's got famous friends, too.

While her Tony-winning husband is well connected, Robinson has friends in high places, too. On Instagram, she's posed with Ben Platt, Todrick Hall, Kerry Washington, and Waitress scribe Sara Bareilles, who she's a big fan of.

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