Christine Marinoni: Who Is Cynthia Nixon's Wife, What Does She Do, and How Did They Meet?
Christine Marinoni is an education activist and LGBTQ+ advocate who became known publicly as the wife of Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon. The couple met in 2001, dated from 2004, and married in 2012, a relationship that came after Nixon's 15-year partnership with a man and two children.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Key takeaways
- Christine Marinoni is an education activist who founded the Alliance for Quality Education in New York City.
- Nixon and Marinoni met in 2001 while working on a campaign to reduce New York public school class sizes.
- Before her relationship with Marinoni, Nixon had never dated a woman.
- Cynthia and Christine got engaged at a rally to support same-sex marriage in New York in 2009, when it was not yet legal, and married in May 2012 after the city passed the Marriage Equality Act.
- Together, Nixon and Marinoni have three children, two from Nixon's prior relationship and one son they share.
Profile summary
Full name | Christine Marinoni |
Year of birth | 1969 |
Place of birth/raised | Washington State, USA (grew up on Bainbridge Island) |
Nationality | American |
Profession | Education activist, community organiser |
Spouse | Cynthia Nixon (married May 2012) |
Children | Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni (b. 2011) |
What does Christine Marinoni do for a living?
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Marinoni is known as an education activist, an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, and the wife of actress and activist Cynthia Nixon.
Marinoni hails from Washington State and grew up on Bainbridge Island across from Seattle. She has lived in New York since the early 1990s and got a degree in economic development at Columbia University.
She first became involved in political activism in 1995, the year she came out as a lesbian, and opened an LGBTQ-friendly coffee shop in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Her most significant professional contribution has been in education reform. As an education organiser, Christine founded the Alliance for Quality Education, an organisation that pushes for high-quality public schooling for all students across New York.
She later became senior adviser for community partnerships, reporting to New York City Deputy Mayor Richard Buery.
Drawing on her extensive background in community organising, Marinoni took a prominent role as a senior adviser in the administration of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. She eventually stepped down from the position in 2018 to support her wife’s gubernatorial campaign.
How did Cynthia Nixon and Christine Marinoni meet?
Nixon has been in a relationship with Marinoni since 2004. The two met while doing education advocacy work on behalf of New York City public schoolchildren and were close friends before starting a romantic relationship.
Specifically, Nixon met Marinoni in 2001 while working with the Alliance for Quality Education, the education non-profit that Marinoni founded.
Nixon and Marinoni have not specified exactly when their relationship turned from friends to more than friends, but the two started dating sometime before the summer of 2004.
Nixon, who identifies as queer, had previously only dated men. She was candid about what drew her to Marinoni in a 2010 interview, telling The Advocate:
I love her sexuality — it's a big part of what I love about her — but I feel like it was her. It wasn't something in me that was waiting to come out. It was like… How can I let this person walk by?
Nixon also spoke to Radio Times about Marinoni's early nerves in the relationship:
When we started seeing each other, Christine kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for me to panic about what this would mean — to my career or to myself — as if somehow I just hadn't noticed that she was a woman. And then she met my mother and that was when she stopped worrying about it.
Their engagement and wedding
Cynthia and Christine got engaged at a rally to support same-sex marriage in New York in 2009, when it was not yet legal. They legally married in May 2012 after the city passed the Marriage Equality Act.
Instead of traditional white, Cynthia opted for a custom, pale green Carolina Herrera gown, while Christine wore a dark suit complemented by a matching green tie.
Nixon reflected on the road to marriage in an interview with Radio Times:
Marriage was never a goal of mine. I was with my boyfriend for 15 years and we never got married. But it seemed like Christine and I did fight really hard for it and we had a lovely wedding. Why wouldn't I have done it?
Cynthia Nixon's children
Nixon has three children in total, two from her previous long-term relationship and one with Marinoni.
Nixon's relationship with Danny Mozes
Mozes and Nixon, college sweethearts, were together from 1988 to 2003. Nixon and Mozes ended their relationship in 2003, though the exact reason for the split is unknown.
They have two children together:
- Samuel Joseph Mozes (Seph): Seph was born Samantha Mozes in November 1996 and is Nixon's first child with her then-partner Danny Mozes. In 2018, Cynthia was vocal with pride over her son coming out as transgender. "I'm so proud of my son Samuel Joseph Mozes (called Seph), who graduated college this month," she posted on Instagram.
- Charles Ezekiel Mozes: Charles Mozes was born on 16 December 2002. Nixon was pregnant with Charles during the fourth season of Sex and the City, which perfectly aligned with the show's narrative; her character was also pregnant.
The son Nixon and Marinoni share
With the assistance of a male friend, Christine became pregnant and gave birth to Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni in February 2011.
Before successfully giving birth to Max, Marinoni endured five heartbreaking miscarriages, later admitting she began to doubt if motherhood was in her future. Fortunately, her sixth pregnancy was a success, and the couple joyfully welcomed their son in February 2011.
Marinoni told The New York Times that motherhood had far exceeded her expectations:
I always just pictured myself like a little worker bee my entire life. But it's like this amazing gift.
Following Max's arrival, Christine took time away from work to be a stay-at-home mum, where she also raised her stepchildren.
Cynthia Nixon's career and activism
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Cynthia Nixon is an American actress, activist, and theatre director. During her career, she has received various accolades, including two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and a Grammy Award, making her one of the few actresses to have won three of the four major American entertainment awards.
She is best known for her work as Miranda Hobbes in HBO's Sex and the City, which earned her the first of two Emmy Awards. Nixon also starred in, directed, and served as an executive producer on the show's sequel And Just Like That…
Politically active for decades on abortion access, cancer awareness, public school funding, and LGBTQ equality, Nixon ran for Governor of New York State in 2018. Both she and Marinoni share a commitment to the same causes, a foundation that made their bond possible in the first place.
In May 2026, Cynthia and Christine celebrated their 14th wedding anniversary.
FAQs
- Who is Christine Marinoni? Christine Marinoni is a dedicated advocate for education and LGBTQ+ rights. She was born in Washington in 1969 and grew up on Bainbridge Island. In the early 1990s, she moved to New York City.
- What does Christine Marinoni do for a living? Marinoni has served as senior adviser for community partnerships, reporting to a New York City deputy mayor. She is also an activist known for her work related to education and LGBT issues.
- How did Cynthia Nixon and Christine Marinoni meet? The two met in 2001, while Cynthia, a spokesperson for Christine's Alliance for Quality Education, lent her support to a campaign working to reduce class sizes in the New York City school system.
- How many children does Cynthia Nixon have? She lives in New York City with her wife, Christine Marinoni, and they have three children. Two sons are from her relationship with Danny Mozes, and son Max is from her marriage to Christine Marinoni.
- When did Cynthia Nixon and Christine Marinoni get married? Nixon began her relationship with Marinoni in 2004. The couple became engaged in 2009 and married in 2012.
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