Idina Menzel said that the fact that she and her ex-husband Taye Diggs were of different races was a big reason why they broke up in 2013.
On the “Dinner’s on Me” show, the “Frozen” star told host Jesse Tyler Ferguson that her split from Diggs after 10 years of marriage was due to a number of tricky issues.
“The thing that came into play more, I would say — and Taye has talked about it too — is the interracial aspect of it,” Menzel said.
The Broadway singer said that the many racial problems they faced had a bigger effect on their marriage than either of their successful careers.
“[Taye] was on the cover of Essence, and Ebony, and being interviewed by all of these Black journalists, and I think he had his own stuff to deal with, with that,” she said. “And it seemed like there was some disappointment in the community with him, because he was married to a little white Jewish girl.”
Indina Menzel’s new record, “This is very much who I am,” she stops apologizing for how she feels.
People of different races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations didn’t have problems with each other in the theater community, but Menzel said things changed once they left that group.
“Okay, I took that on too. Manzel said, “That was stuff we had to deal with.” “It was less about being successful and more about that stuff.”
Menzel, who was new to Broadway, and Diggs, who had been on stage for a long time, met in 1995 while they were both in “Rent” as Maureen Johnson and Benjamin “Benny” Coffin III. After that, they played the same parts again in the 2005 movie version of the show.
They got married in 2003 and had a son named Walker Diggs in 2009. By December 2013, they were no longer together and had decided to raise Walker together but separately. The next year, they completed their split.
Before they broke up, the two were known as a power pair in the entertainment business. Diggs starred in the love comedy “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” in 1998, and Menzel played Elphaba in the first Broadway production of Wicked in 2003.
“He was always so supportive, and probably relieved so he didn’t have to feel like he was overshadowing in some way or taking up too much space,” Menzel shared on the show.
According to Menzel, they still help each other out.
