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On HBO’s Insecure, which is nominated for eight Emmys in2020, fictional Issa’s love life is depicted in all its glory. However, the show’s real-life creator and star Issa Rae prefers to keep her own romances under-the-radar. That includes her now-marriage to Louis Diame.
“I don’t want any input,” Rae explained to Vogue. “As a writer, you put everything on the table. I’ll take input on kids if I’m going to have kids. How do I not kill the kids? Work? Give me the input. Any other aspect of my life? Give me the input. But who I’m f*cking? No, I don’t need input. I’m good.” Still, we’ve managed to uncover a few things about her longtime relationship, thanks to interviews from those in her inner circle.
Ahead, everything we know about Diame and his low-key life with Rae.
He’s reportedly a businessman.
While many celebrities prefer to keep their relationships to themselves, Rae and Diame have truly gone the extra mile. It’s difficult to confirm anything about his profession, although outlets such as Marie Claire and Martha Stewart Weddings have identified Diame as a “Senegalese businessman.” A LinkedIn page under the name is private, but lists his profession as an Independent Banking Professional in the Greater Los Angeles Area.
No one knows how he met Rae or how long they’ve been together.
Rae typically avoids talking about Diame during interviews. But eagle-eyed fans have traced the couple’s romance back to at least 2012. In a Washington Post piece about The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, Rae’s breakout project, Diame is identified as her “boyfriend.” The outlet also notes that he’s a 29-year-old student (which would make him about 37 now) and that he appears in episode 7 of Rae’s series.
Rumors of their engagement started in March 2019.
Speculation that Rae was engaged to Diame began in March 2019, when she appeared on the cover of Essence wearing a sizable ring on that finger. People reported that the pair was set to tie the knot the following month.
…but they never confirmed the news themselves.
Even though there was some mounting evidence to support that Rae and Diame were engaged, neither party confirmed the news. During an appearance on The View, Rae laughed off rumors, explaining, “I’ve got a lot of rings on my finger. I wear jewelry, you know?”
She also coyly tweeted in the days after the Essence cover release, “Oh wow, I don’t want this.” (Then again, that could be an evergreen tweet for most of the things happening on Twitter.)
It was actually two of Rae’s Insecure co-stars who confirmed her engagement news. “We all found out in different ways because we’re all on different text chains. We talk at different times, so we all found out at different times in different ways,” Jay Ellis told Entertainment Tonight. Yvonne Orji added, πThe reaction was all the same, like, ‘You out here in these streets getting married, boo?!’ That was the reaction.”
Us Weekly even grabbed an interview with Lamine Diop, Rae’s brother, where he spoke about the engagement. “They did it around the holidays,” he revealed. “She’s so low-key too—for real! I found out, like, a couple days later, so we’re just gonna let her lead the way.” Diop also disclosed that the couple had “been dating forever” calling Diame “like a brother to me.”
Rae announced she married Diame in France in July 2021.
Rae revealed she and Diame tied the knot on her Instagram on July 26, 2021, sharing photos of her strapless tulle Vera Wang wedding dress and them together on the big day. The two wedded in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France.
Rae captioned the post, “A) Impromptu photo shoot in a custom @verawang dress.
B) My girls came to help me, but they all coincidentally had on the same dress! They were sooooo embarrassed.
C) Then I took a few flicks with Somebody’s Husband.
Big thanks to @whiteedenweddings for being so gracious and accommodating and making this feel so real and special.”
They’ve made a few joint red carpet appearances.
Despite their pattern of secrecy, Diame has joined Rae for a few red carpet events.
In 2016, they attended the after party for Insecure‘s premiere.
They also went to HBO’s Golden Globes after party back in 2017.
And they also posed for photos at the Essence Black Women In Hollywood Awards that same year, where Rae was honored with the Vanguard Award.
Still, this couple’s public appearances are few and far between.
Rae explained to Self in September 2021 that she had kept her private life with Diame private for good reason.
Rae said she wanted to keep their relationship to themselves rather than giving it to the world. “I think the little time I’ve been in the industry, I’ve witnessed how so many people who are front-facing don’t have a peace and aren’t at peace, and that’s always been troubling to me,” she started. “In this age of social media, where I was an avid user, I would share so much of myself, of my friend group, and it was fun because it felt like [it was] just among my friends. The more I started to seep out, the more I felt like people took ownership of me and my decisions and things that I did. That’s just not something that sat right with me, and I found that I don’t like to be the subject of conversations that I don’t initiate. There’s just something uncomfortable about that.”
Rae told Self she confirmed their wedding just so she could have control of the narrative.
In her September 2021 interview, Rae admitted that she knew she couldn’t keep everything about her and Diame private. She shared news of her wedding so she could control its own coverage. “I still try to be private about my personal life, but that was something that I knew was going to be shared, and I just wanted to share it on my own terms,” she said.
Diame and Rae made two red carpet appearances together in 2022.
Last year, the couple was slightly more public, making their first event appearances since 2017. The couple attended the Critics’ Choice Awards in March:
And the Emmys in September:
Editorial Fellow
Savannah Walsh is an Editorial Fellow at ELLE.com.