Orange Is the New Black’s Samira Wiley and writer Lauren Morelli’s marriage didn’t make it to their 10-year milestone. The former couple have decided to divorce after nine years and one child together.
“After nine years together we have decided to end our marriage, however, our lifelong commitment to co-parenting will forever remain,” the couple said in a joint statement to Out.
The former couple met in 2012 while working on Orange Is the New Black—Wiley played the role of Poussey Washington while Morelli served as a longtime writer on the hit Netflix series. During that year, Morelli realized she was gay while still married to her now-ex husband.
In an essay, which she penned in 2014, she explained her journey to coming out in Identities.Mic.
“I realized I was gay in fall 2012, one of my first days on the set,” she wrote in the essay.
Wiley, on the other hand, was gay but hadn’t publicly disclosed that information. Unfortunately, her sexuality was announced by another co-star during an interview—without her consent.
“I wasn’t out in the beginning and I think falling in love with Poussey, which is really a thing that happened to me, helped me fall in love with myself as well,” Wiley noted, later adding, “I think that if I wasn’t portraying these characters, I wonder how my own journey with my own sexual orientation, how I would embrace that, how I would walk the world if I wasn’t able to embrace the characters that I have been.”
By 2014, Morelli split from her ex-husband despite trying couples therapy and attempting to work on their marriage, according to an interview with Out magazine. The writer said that during that challenging season of her life, Wiley was a source of comfort.
“Samira became my outlet, and through that process I fell in love with her,” she said. “But I thought, this will be the one that got away. Being with her felt too good to be true.”
The couple would marry in Palm Springs, California, in 2017, sharing their union with loved ones. The location was sentimental, since it’s where they got engaged a few months earlier. Wiley’s parents officiated the ceremony at the time. In April 2021, they welcomed their daughter, George Elizabeth.
A few years after walking down the aisle, she spoke to ESSENCE about what she had learned about marriage.
“So far, I’ve learned from marriage —more internally than externally— is how I think about she and me,” the actress said at the time. “There’s another part of us as a whole together. I know now there’s a sense of security, a sense of this is my team. This is the team for life. She ain’t going nowhere. It’s just a sense of security that feels really, really good.”