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In the Aretha Franklin biopic RESPECT, Marlon Wayans wasn’t the jokester we are accustomed to him being. He instead tapped into his romantic bag as he portrayed Franklin’s first husband Ted White. Even though he played a husband in the film, Wayans has never been married himself.
Wayans explained in an Essence interview that he never tied the knot because he didn’t want any other woman to have the number one spot in his life besides his mother, Elvira Wayans.
“I never got married because I knew my mom needed me,” he said. “Women sometimes want to battle for your attention, they want to battle for your love, they want to be the one. Me and my mama share the same birthday. I’m not trying to hear you.”
Elvira Wayans died in July 2020.
He’s never been married but was in a longterm relationship with the mother of his two children, Angela Zackery, from 1992 to 2013.
He said he told his mother his reason behind not getting married while she was on her deathbed.
“I’m 47 years old and I’ve never been married because I always wanted you to be my number one girl’,” he told his mother. “My mother turned over, she looked at me, she grabbed my hand, and she pulled me close to her. I said ‘I know, I love you too’ and I gave her a kiss and I said, ‘I’ll see you soon, but not that soon because I got a s*** load of life to live.’ She laughed in pain, and I gave her a kiss, and those were my last words to my mom.”
He said all he wants from his next relationship, whether from a girlfriend or wife, is peace.
“You know what you need? Peace,” he added. “Love is a vacation. I don’t want to give nobody issues. I want to give you smiles and I hope you want to give me the same. All the other stuff is just noise and stuff that we’re battling. I just want to smile. I just want to laugh. I just want to eat well, I just want to travel, I just want to be loved, I just want to be hugged. I just want to hug you. I just want all the good stuff. All that other nonsense? It’s for the birds, man.”
Wayans isn’t counting marriage out and is open to it.
“Yeah, I probably got one in me,” he said about marriage. “Just one.”
