She had to hide who she was from the person she loved most.
Her relationship had to be a secret.
Their love was against the law.
And yet, despite all the odds against them, Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner's relationship
has been going strong for fifty years.
They were by each other's side when they decided to come out to the world, and their love story
has been nothing short of inspirational.
Stay tuned, Juicers, because we have everything you need to know about Lily Tomlin and Jane
Wagner's decades-long romance.
They first crossed paths in the early 1970s, after Lily first reached out to Jane for some
writing assistance on her Edith Ann comedy album.
The actress was already impressed with Wagner's previous works, and she knew that she was
the right woman to help her out.
But, after Lily mustered up the nerve to send Jane a message, she didn't hear back from
her for quite some time.
For a while, the actress thought she wasn't going to get a response, and suddenly, a week
before she was supposed to go and record her album, Jane responded and sent her a mountain
of writing material.
Lily managed to persuade Jane to come to California to meet in person.
And when they finally met up, Tomlin confessed that it was love at first sight.
She felt as though they had just 'clicked,' and she was completely taken by her from the
moment Jane walked into her hotel room for their meeting.
The actress explained, "A friend brought her to my hotel room, and I tell you, in two minutes,
I fell in love with her.
She had on hot pants, stretchy boots that went up to her knee, and a little backpack.
I don't know what it was, but I was in love."
Tomlin said she was so smitten that, after leaving the next day to perform a show in
Chicago, she flew immediately back to New York to find Wagner.
"I called Jane immediately, and I said, 'Look, I don't have much time, but I have to see
you."
Jane agreed, they had their first date, and as Lily describes it, they were a couple right
away.
"It was an ecstatic time when we found each other," added Wagner, "aesthetically — and
in every other way."
Their relationship wasn't really public knowledge for many years, but it turned into more of
an open secret.
The couple never came out publicly and did their best to keep things private, considering
what the times were like during the '70s.
Tomlin said back in 1975; Time magazine tried to bribe her into making a huge public coming-out
statement.
Even though it was "a hard decision to make," Tomlin ultimately decided to turn it down
because she wanted to be acknowledged for her acting, not her sexual identity.
"My publicist called me and said, 'Time will give you the cover if you'll come out.'
I was more offended than anything that they thought we'd make a deal.
But that was '75 — it would have been a hard thing to do at that time."
The actress explained.
Not only that, but her mother never knew that she was gay, and Lily knew it was never going
to be something she could understand or accept.
Despite the love she had for Jane, Lily was never able to tell her mother about it.
In fact, she waited for her mother to die before she ever came out publicly as gay.
So to her mother, Jane was only ever a close friend and nothing more.
Because Tomlin had never publicly come out, she had to do her best to keep her relationship
with Wagner pretty private.
In a 2015 interview, the actress shared, "My mother would have died.
Literally.
If she'd lived to see me come out.
Bless her heart, she was Southern, basically fundamentalist, but she was very witty and
sweet and kind, and she adored Jane.
She died 10 years ago.
She was 91.
So that was always kind of a dilemma for me."
Although they had to keep their love under wraps, it never stopped the pair from working
together.
As an experienced screenwriter, Wagner worked on several projects with Lily, including Tomlin's
one-woman show 'The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe' - for which she won
a Tony Award in 1986- and the movie 'The Incredible Shrinking Woman.'
"We share similar feelings about people and about the world," Tomlin said of Wagner in
1988.
"She's able to verbalize it and I'm able to physicalize it.
She writes satirically but tenderly, and she loves farce and black comedy and broad slapstick.
When you put all this together and make an audience laugh and be moved, it's just glorious."
They finally got married in 2013 in an intimate ceremony.
Tomlin told People they tried to be incognito when they went for their marriage license.
"We went in Van Nuys because if anyone should see us, we didn't want them to write about
us," she said.
A few days later, they wed in an intimate ceremony at a friend's house.
"It was sweet," says Tomlin.
"We didn't have any rings, so I went into our jewelry and was digging out rings.
I said, 'We have to have some kind of rings!'"
Finally, after so many years of keeping their relationship on the quiet side, they were
able to tie the knot and make things official.
Lily never thought about getting married before, mostly because she didn't expect to see the
day when same-sex marriages become legal.
But when the laws were changed, she knew that if she was going to marry anyone, it was going
to be Jane.
And when it came to starting a family of their own, the couple briefly considered it.
"Jane has a very handsome nephew and we thought, 'Well, we could get his sperm and I could
bear his child,'" Tomlin told The Guardian in 2015.
But later, Lily and Jane decided not to have kids and to look back; they're glad that they
never did.
"In retrospect, we say every day, 'I'm so glad we didn't have any children.'
When I think of the world now, I don't want to even deal with having to raise a child."
Lily explained.
The actress also shared that becoming a mother was never an "aspiration" of hers and wasn't
shy about sharing her opinion of it back in the '70s.
Tomlin publicly spoke about not wanting to have kids on The Johnny Carson Show—which
was a big deal at the time.
"If you didn't want to get married or have children, well, that's off the scale.
So the audience just got dead silent."
Tomlin shared in a 2013 interview, which the outlet recalled as a feminist moment.
Tomlin broke the ice with a joke.
"And I said what I said, 'Well, I like children, but I don't want to bear children.
By the way, who has custody of yours?'
And everyone laughed.
It diffused the tension in the moment."
The couple's work is so closely tied together that they were honoured with a joint star
on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars in 2012.
"I knew we were going to get something great because these days, you go any place and you
don't know if you're going to get a vaginal probe," Wagner said during their acceptance
speech.
"We felt safe here.
I rarely get included in these honors."
While they share the same sense of humor and creative methods, in other ways, they're both
quite different from one another.
Tomlin likes being organized with a strict schedule and likes to keep herself busy with
gardening.
On the other hand, Wagner is far less organized, needs to constantly be reminded of appointments,
and prefers to stay indoors and read.
However, their differences have always complemented each other.
When asked for the secret to commitment in an interview, Lily replied, "Commitment.
Just willingness to go the distance.
Caring about somebody, respecting somebody.
Just wanting to build on that."
The actress explained that her wife has the ability to express how she feels when she
feels like she doesn't have the words for it, and their great understanding of one another
is what has kept them together for so long.
When it comes to Hollywood relationships, Lily and Jane seem to have outlasted them
all.
What started out as a creative partnership quickly turned into something romantic, and
they've been creating award-winning comedy gold ever since.
"We really care about each other," Wagner said in a 1994 interview with the Chicago
Tribune.
"I love her," Tomlin echoed.
"I don't want anything bad to happen to her."
Undeterred by the odds against them, the iconic couple has spent a lifetime building a fulfilling
relationship based on trust and friendship.
Fifty years later, nothing has changed, and they're still happier than ever.
And we couldn't be happier for them.