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Nicole Ari Parker revealed what she thought was a “key ingredient” in her 20-year marriage with husband Boris Kodjoe on the Baby, This is Keke Palmer podcast
She also shared that her husband surprised her with a stay at a Turks and Caicos luxury resort to celebrate their 20th anniversary
Parker and Kodjoe began dating after meeting on the set of Soul Food in the early 2000s and got married in Kodjoe’s hometown of Gundelfingen, Germany in 2005
Nicole Ari Parker knows the key to a long-lasting marriage.
The And Just Like That… star, 54, shared on the Aug. 5 episode of the Baby, This is Keke Palmer podcast that while she and husband Boris Kodjoe, 52, don’t follow a “special formula” for their romantic partnership, they intentionally work together to build the life they envision.
During the conversation, host Keke Palmer reflected on the idea that “love is an action” and “something you choose to do,” and asked Parker whether that mindset has been a “key ingredient” in her own relationship.
“We chose each other very deliberately,” the actress responded. “But I think there was an instinct there where you’re like, you know, people sometimes don’t do this. Like, ‘Could I leave my children with this man? Yes.’ ”
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Boris Kodjoe and Nicole Ari Parker attend the 2025 Vanity Fair Oscar Party.
“People marry men and have children with them and like, ‘No. Daddy’s not watching you. Ugh.’ You know what I mean?” she continued. “Like, I have a very good father, so I had a very sharp sense of, ‘Okay, when it comes down to it, if the [s—] hits the fan, are you gonna ride?… or rise to the occasion?’ And I thought he would. And he has.”
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Parker and Kodjoe met on the set of Soul Food in the early 2000s and began dating shortly after. They got married in Kodjoe’s hometown of Gundelfingen, Germany, in 2005, and welcomed two children in the years following: Sophie and Nicolas.
The couple is still going strong and recently marked their 20th anniversary — a milestone Parker said her husband was determined to celebrate in a big way.
“The press tour had started for Just Like That…, so I wasn’t really able to go away to Mexico. I had to go to Paris and all these things,” Parker explained on the podcast.
“Yeah, and I was like, ‘Baby, let’s just you know, we just got this house. Let’s just have a picnic, and we got a yard. We got a backyard. [Let’s] do something romantic. He was like, ‘No. 20 years, we’re going somewhere.’ And next thing I know, we are in the Ammanyara Resort,” she said, referring to the luxury resort in Turks and Caicos.
Palmer responded that Kodjoe was “such a romantic.” That romanticism appears to have appeared early on in their marriage, as Parker also recalled the “fairy tale”-like details of their wedding.
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Boris Kodjoe and Nicole Ari Parker at the photo call for ‘And Just Like That…’ series.
“I wanted to be on a horse and carriage with my dad that’s taking me to the church… The cobblestone road [that leads up to the church] goes right to his grandmother’s house that he grew up… But you’re walking through the village, and literally someone’s like, ‘Oh, a wedding, and opens her wooden shutters and throws flowers on me.’ ”
“I think there’s a picture in People magazine of me catching flowers that some stranger threw on flex,” she added, noting that it was such a “beautiful place.”
Parker isn’t the only one who likes to gush about their relationship. In March 2024, Kodjoe shared the secret to the couple’s long-lasting marriage during an appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show.
“You just can’t give up,” he said. “If this is your person, you can’t give up on them. You got to crawl through the mud together. You got to fight those fights together.”
Read the original article on People
