Kerry Washington revealed she used to pin her engagement ring to her undergarments to keep the news private.
The 47-year-old actress — who tied the knot with former NFL star Nnamdi Asomugha in 2013 — kept her the valuable piece of jewelry hidden to ‘protect’ her relationship.
Speaking on SiriusXM’s This Life of Mine with James Corden, she said: ‘I used to pin my engagement ring to my undergarments because I loved my ring so much, so I would sleep in it at night, and then in the morning, I would pin it to my undergarments so that nobody knew we were engaged.’
She explained, ‘He had a groundbreaking, record-breaking contract that he had just walked through, and he had been in three or four Pro Bowls, you know. When I met him, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and I was on this hit show.
‘It just felt like there was a lot of public energy around our careers, but we kept our relationship very private when we were dating, I think mostly because we just wanted to protect ourselves and each other.’
Kerry Washington revealed she used to pin her engagement ring to her undergarments to keep the news private; pictured at the NAACP Awards in March
The 47-year-old actress — who tied the knot with former NFL star Nnamdi Asomugha in 2013 — kept her the valuable piece of jewelry hidden to ‘protect’ her relationship; the couple pictured in 2018
The couple went on to welcome kids Isabelle, nine, and Caleb, seven.
The Scandal star struggles with the idea of the world talking about her personal life and decided to stop talking about it altogether when she was on the cover of a bridal magazine.
She said: ‘I think it’s really hard when people have a lot to say about your relationship.’
And the Save The Last Dance actress noted about a past breakup, ‘I had been in a really public engagement that when it ended, I was in the unfortunate position of being on the cover of a bridal magazine and it was a bridal magazine that came out quarterly, so for three months I walked around and I thought, ‘I think I’m done talking about my personal life in the public.”
The revelation comes after Washington and Asomugha made a rare public appearance together at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party earlier this year.
The spouses met in 2009, backstage at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in Manhattan following a performance of Kerry’s Broadway play Race.
Kerry also made mention of hiding her engagement ring in the memoir she released last fall.
In Thicker Than Water, the Emmy-winning producer wrote that she pinned the ring ‘inside my clothing for fear that if people knew we were engaged, it would be impossible to have a wedding away from public spectacle.’
The longtime couple share two kids: Isabelle, nine, and Caleb, seven
Kerry and Nnamdi pictured in 2018, five years into their marriage
‘I’m in my immediate truth with [Nnamdi],’ Kerry described in a Marie Claire cover story last year.
The mother-of-two added: ‘Those mirrors are important because they help me get back to myself.’
As for her professional life, Hulu officially renewed the Bronx-born beauty’s daddy-daughter sitcom Unprisoned for a second season in November.
For his part, Nnamdi began casting for his directorial debut, The Knife, a psychological thriller, in 2022.
