Wanda Sykes, 58, has been a comedy icon for nearly 30 years. After making her standup debut in the late 1980s, Wanda moved to New York to pursue comedy and eventually was hired to be a writer for The Chris Rock Show in the 90s. Since that time, she’s gone on to many accomplishments of her own, including a number of comedy specials and TV and movie roles. Since the mid-2000s, Wanda has had her wife Alex Niedbalski by her side. While Alex may not be a comedian like Wanda, she’s super supportive of her wife. Find out everything you need to know about her here!
How did Wanda and Alex meet?
Wanda and Alex’s story of how they met is super cute. The Tongue Untied comedian opened up about how a friend had advised her to give corny pickup lines a try to meet people in a 2018 interview with The Guardian. Wanda instead opted to tell Alex all about a kitchen remodeling job she had while riding a ferry to New York’s Fire Island. Apparently, the pair were a perfect match. “Something really said to me – like, audibly – ‘Wow, that’s what you need, Wanda,'” she said.
Wanda and Alex tied the knot in October 2008, a month before the comic came out as a lesbian during a rally supporting same sex marriage and pushing back against Prop 8 in California. The Oscars host looked back on the fight after the pair wed in an anniversary post celebrating 12 years together in October 2020. “In 2008, we were fighting for marriage equality. We asked [our] friends in lieu of gifts to support #NoProp8,” she wrote. “Although CA Prop 8 passed, we eventually won marriage equality for the country via the Supreme Court.” Alex has taken Wanda’s last name since the pair wed.
Alex is an interior designer
It should come as no surprise that Wanda striking up a conversation about a kitchen remodel won Alex’s heart, because that’s the industry she works in! While Alex has regularly shown her support for Wanda on her Instagram and even occasionally starred in some comedic videos alongside her wife, Alex was a businesswoman before the pair met and serves as a vice president for a kitchen countertop company, based in Canada, via Suggest.
Alex and Wanda have a set of twins
After a year of marriage, Wanda and Alex became moms to a set of fraternal twins: a boy Lucas Claus and a girl Olivia Lou. Alex gave birth to the two in April 2009. Wanda’s representative said that the moms and babies were all doing great in a statement to Today at the time. “All are happy and healthy and at home,” the rep said.
Wanda opened up about how difficult it is to adapt to parenthood in a 2016 interview with Vulture, where she joked about how exhausted she was. “The hardest thing to get through was just how tired I was, just the lack of sleep,” she said. ” At one time I was contemplating taking one back. I was like, can we return one? I mean really, oh my gosh. I was thinking we can’t do this, we’re going to have to take one back.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic hitting in 2020, Wanda and Alex’s attention was mostly devoted to the twins. “The majority of my time now is the cafeteria lady, the janitor, and the hall monitor. It’s crazy,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2020. “By the time they go to bed, Alex and I sit down to watch something, and we barely make it through an episode of anything. We both fall asleep.”
Alex sometimes stars in Wanda’s comedy videos.
While Wanda is the comedian in the relationship, Alex shows that she also has a sense of humor in some of their comedic videos on Instagram. The comic did describe her wife as “funny,” even if sometimes it was “unintentional” in the 2016 Vulture interview. The pair occasionally make cute clips, where they’re both talking to the camera, sending messages to their fans, and both ladies lovingly roast one another. The pair have made silly clips of themselves making jokes to commemorate things like the holidays or their anniversary, or simply for Alex to give some lessons on how the French pronounce different types of wine. Or on occasion, Wanda will give her wife some funny dance lessons, like when they made a hilarious video set to “All I Want For Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey.
Some of the videos do tend to steer more sweet than comedic. The Upshaws funny lady celebrated Valentine’s Day with an adorable video of her and Alex dancing in their kitchen set to the Bee Gee’s “More Than A Woman.” The two ladies held each other close before wishing Wanda’s fans a Happy V-Day.
Alex is Wanda’s second marriage
Before Wanda came out as gay, she was married to record producer Dave Hall from 1991 until 1998. Dave was most well-known for working on albums by tons of huge stars like Mary J. Blige, Madonna and Usher. Wanda reflected on how the relationship influenced her style of humor to be a bit meaner during the 90s in a 2019 interview with The New York Times. “It just speaks to being in a bad relationship with my husband,” she said. “I was being honest. I wanted to get away. Like: ‘God, there’s his stupid face, and he’s chewing. Ugh, does he have to breathe? Make him stop breathing.'”
Since the relationship ended, she said that she’s all the more appreciative of her wife, because of how much she loves her compared to her ex-husband. “Now I’m in a great relationship, and I’m happy, so my wife’s chewing doesn’t annoy me,” she quipped.