Neil Patrick Harris and husband David Burtka are fairly actually two peas in a pod. “We have the same shoe size, body size, height and weight,” Harris instructed Out magazine in 2012, adding that they share a wardrobe. “We’re both Gemini. We both like the idea of family — not a nuclear family, but a social family.”
But just as much as they’re similar, they’re also quite opposite in how they operate. Harris explained he’s “very introspective — thinker, rather than the doer. I tend to weigh options before making decisions, and David is the polar opposite of that.”
It’s both their commonalities and differences that have made Harris (best known for his stints on TV shows Doogie Howser, M.D. and How I Met Your Mother and as a four-time Tonys host) and Burtka (a cookbook author, chef and actor) such a perfect match — and a stable Hollywood couple, who went on their first date on April Fool’s Day of 2004.
Commemorating occasion in 2021, they swapped Instagram posts, with Harris calling Burtka “my top priority, my constant inspiration, my baby daddy, and my best friend,” and Burtka returning the love with, “You have given me the life I have dreamed of. I am constantly amazed at your parenting skills, how hard you work to provide for our family, how much we still laugh, that we haven’t lost ‘it’ in the romantic department and most importantly that we are still madly in love.”
But the couple, who at the moment are dad and mom to fraternal twins, daughter Harper Grace and son Gideon Scott, would have by no means met if it weren’t for an opportunity encounter on the streets of New York City.
Burtka was in a relationship once they met
Despite having been billed a teen heartthrob, gracing the covers of juvenile magazines within the ’90s, Harris didn’t at all times really feel fortunate in love. “I keep in mind being in my mid-twenties, mendacity in mattress considering, I’ve by no means taken a bathe with anybody earlier than; I’ve by no means had any type of long-term relationship. I keep in mind considering that the remainder of my life can be solo,” he admitted to Out. “I wasn’t weepy when I thought that — it was just a realization that I had gone this long being self-sufficient.” In truth, he was extra than simply ample. Harris had been incomes ardent reward because the Master of Ceremony in Sam Mendes’ model of Cabaret on Broadway in 2003.
During that point, he bumped into his buddy Kate on the road, who occurred to be with Burtka (who was coincidentally in one other Mendes manufacturing on the time, Gypsy). Harris assumed he was Kate’s boyfriend, remembering Burtka as a “brooding, James Dean–type guy in a leather jacket who gave me the head nod and then turned away,” Harris mentioned. After all, Burtka was already in a long-distance relationship.
Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka on the premiere of “Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay” on the Cinerama Dome on April 17, 2008, in Los Angeles, California
Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
They first frolicked at an ‘American Idol’ social gathering
Harris was respectful but additionally didn’t wish to hand over hope. “I didn’t want to be that guy who was creating some sort of romantic interference,” he instructed Out. “So I was always around when he was around, hoping the stars would align.”
Their first actual hangout was when Kate invited him to an American Idol viewing social gathering. “I just stammered around him,” Harris remembers. “I couldn’t take my eyes off him.”
They ultimately began hanging out as associates. “I thought he was adorable…with these amazing blue eyes that are just hypnotizing to me,” Burtka mentioned. Eventually he broke up along with his boyfriend and he and Harris went on their first date the next week to the films to see Angelina Jolie’s Taking Lives.
One important matter that got here up on that first date: youngsters. “If he hadn’t wanted kids, I don’t think we’d be together,” Burtka added. “I always thought that family was the most important thing in life, and no matter what I do, whether being a chef or an actor or a dancer, being a dad is what I do best.”
They moved in collectively simply months after they began relationship
From that first date, the 2 began seeing extra of each other. “We started hanging out every single night, and after three months, it was just non-stop,” Burtka remembered, with Harris including, “Once we started talking, we never stopped.”
They quickly moved in collectively, just because it appeared handy. “We thought if we were both going to be paying $5,000 a month to use someone else’s sheets and towels, we might as well do it together,” Harris instructed the publication of the transferring right into a “roomy and reasonably priced” place in Harlem {that a} lady had lived in for greater than 4 a long time.
Heading again to L.A. to pack up, their cross-country drive to their new residence in New York City symbolized the merging of their lives. They began by loading up the transferring truck with the muse of every of their lives they’d in storage, earlier than stopping in Harris’ hometown of Albuquerque to choose up some issues after which to Michigan, the place Burtka’s household is, to get his household’s piano. “We went slowly across America, filling up this truck, and by the time we got to New York, we had a new life full of furniture,” Harris mentioned.
They’re sincere about their ups and downs
With that new life additionally got here a brand new degree of belief between one another — which included full openness, even when it wasn’t the simple solution to go. “I initially fell for David harder than he fell for me,” Harris admitted. “I remember saying, ‘I think I love you,’ and he was like, ‘That’s really nice,’ which is not necessarily what you want to hear. But I appreciated his honesty in not jumping the gun and saying something because he felt obliged to.”
Burtka says that the primary three years had been like a “honeymoon period” after which they ultimately settled right into a vibe. “It becomes more comfortable, but it becomes a necessity — something you can’t give up, like an addict,” he mentioned.
And like all couple, they’ve their disagreements. “Our fights last five minutes, then we’re over it,” Burtka mentioned. “[Since] we’re both Gemini — we have a good twin and a bad twin, and the four of us get along really well!”
Neil Patrick Harris (L) and David Burtka (R) with their twins, Gideon Scott Burtka-Harris and Harper Grace Burtka-Harris, in 2017
Photo: Monica Schipper/Getty Images
Burtka proposed on the road nook they met adopted by a proposal by Harris on Valentine’s Day
One day a couple of years into their relationship, the 2 had been on their solution to an occasion outdoors of New York City in a limo, when Burtka insisted on stopping. It turned out they had been on the road nook the place they’d their first likelihood encounter. “He got on one knee and proposed, and I was so freaked out by it that I said, ‘Yes,’ but I didn’t know what it meant,” Harris mentioned. “Then I got the ring and loved it, and a year later, on Valentine’s Day, I proposed to him in Santa Monica.”
At the time, homosexual marriage hadn’t been legalized in New York, however they didn’t let that maintain again their plans to start out a household. “We both agreed that if we wanted to have kids, we didn’t want to do it super late in the game,” Harris mentioned. “We wanted our parents to enjoy the process and to be young and vibrant enough to throw a ball with them, or to chase them around without using a walker.” On October 12, 2010, that dream got here true, as they welcomed Gideon and Harper via surrogate.
The pair obtained married in Italy in September 2014
As the household continued to develop, with each dad and mom sharing updates on their social media, June 2011 grew to become a historic time. “It PASSED! Marriage equality in NY!! Yes!! Progress!! Thank you everyone who worked so hard on this!! A historic night!” Harris tweeted. The subsequent day, he obtained extra private, tweeting: “David and I did propose to each other, but over five years ago! We’ve been wearing engagement rings for ages, waiting for an available date.”
While elevating their youngsters undoubtedly stored their arms full, it wasn’t till three years later, on September 6, 2014, that the couple of 10 years lastly obtained married in a small ceremony in Italy with just 45 guests, together with Kelly Ripa and Elton John, who additionally performed at the reception.
The ceremony was officiated by How I Met Your Mother director and producer Pam Fryman as the lads each wore customized Tom Ford tuxedos, People reported. Fireworks and magic had been a part of the festivities that had been held at a fortress, Ripa shared on her show. She additionally revealed that each of the Butka-Harris youngsters had important roles, with Gideon — who wore a high hat and tux — entering into the place of “orange boy” who handed out oranges as he walked down the aisle.
Harris says the key to their relationship is ‘perseverance’
Nowadays, the couple continues to boost their household collectively, not shy to have their youngsters seem in holiday-themed Instagram posts and even alongside them in commercials. After all, they’re all about giving Harper and Gideon as many experiences as they will.
“I feel like our life is just a bunch of blank pages in a big book and we’re trying to fill them up as best we can, so I hope it will be a good read,” Harris instructed Parents. And they continue to work through the challenges together. “The secret to a relationship is just perseverance, you know?” he told Entertainment Tonight. “It’s not always pretty…but he’s pretty, so it makes it easy.”
But greater than something, it’s about persevering with to intertwine their lives in each manner. “We talk on the phone at least eight times a day and text at least 25 times a day,” Burtka instructed Out. “We are, in a way, very codependent. He’s my lifeline, in an amazing way. Without him, I can’t breathe.”
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