They’re still hopelessly in love, but Rosario Dawson and Cory Booker made the difficult choice to quarantine separately during the COVID-19 crisis, she revealed to ET. The couple are currently thousands of miles apart, as the Briarpatch actress, 40, takes care of her parents, Isabel and Greg Dawson, who are at “high risk” during the pandemic. Her New Jersey Senator boyfriend, 50, remains in Washington, DC. Rosario’s father defeated pancreatic cancer four months ago. “I’m here taking care of my parents. My dad is 6’1″ and still in the 120s weight-wise. It’s been a long journey for going on a year and a half now,” she told the outlet. “We’re just in our gratitude. Both of my parents are high risk. I just want to do anything and everything we can in this next year or year and a half, whatever period it is, of just being as safe as possible.”
While she’s “grateful” that she’s able to take care of her parents, she admitted that it’s been “challenging” being separated from her love. Their schedules have never really matched up the entire time they’ve been dating, actually. With the senator out of the 2020 presidential race, they thought they could finally get some romantic time together. Those plans were obviously derailed. “He’s been campaigning [for president] the whole year and it was just only a couple of months since we started dating,” she said. “So we’ve not really had a really good chunk of time together because of our work and our family and all the other things. It ended up being what was supposed to be our longest time together [is] now our longest period apart from each other. So, that’s definitely been really challenging.”
Rosario confirmed their relationship in March 2019 after months of speculation. The couple were spotted together multiple times in late 2018, and Cory said on The Breakfast Club that he had a “boo.” She spilled the beans when approached by reporters at DC’s Reagan National Airport, with a “Booker 2020” pin on her bag. “He’s a wonderful human being, it’s good to spend some time together when we can,” she said. After that, they weren’t shy about spending time together in the public eye, and gushing about each other every chance they got. Despite their wild schedules, they made time to support each other professionally, too. They kissed on the red carpet at the LA Zombieland: Double Tap premiere in October, and she cheered him on days later in Ohio at the presidential debate.
It’s getting serious, too. Rosario hinted that they’re in this for the long haul, in the March 2020 issue of Women’s Health: “I feel a lot of life ahead of us. It’s been beautiful feeling nurtured and taken care of. I’ve never been this close to someone.” As HollywoodLife learned EXCLUSIVELY in January 2020, Cory spent the holidays with Rosario and her family in Los Angeles. While she misses her boyfriend terribly, Rosario told ET that they probably won’t reunite for awhile because of her parents’ delicate health.
“We just gotta make really careful decisions about moving,” she said. “I just want to do anything and everything we can in this next year or year and a half, whatever period it is, of just being as safe as possible. It’s hard to think about when we are going to be flying again and doing anything that was planned. Like plans, what are those? We’re just taking it every day at a time.”
