Leslie Odom Jr. and his wife, Nicolette Robinson, are looking forward to welcoming their second child, but the actor and singer is currently spending time away from his family in a precautionary measure.
Odom told The Today Show last week that he’s isolating himself from his pregnant partner and their three-year-old daughter, Lucy, after making an in-person appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show earlier this month. One day later, Ellen DeGeneres, the 62-year-old host of the eponymous show, announced that she’d tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has upended society.
Because Odom prioritizes his family, he’s had to steer clear of them as of late.
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“First and foremost, I hope Ellen is well. I haven’t spoken to her. Obviously, I hope she’s doing okay,” Odom said to Today co-hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager in a virtual interview. “We’re getting our tests every day for the next 10 days, and quarantining from each other because my wife is pregnant … and the virus can affect pregnant ladies differently.
“Anywhere, we’re doing our best to stay — I’ve got my mask in the house,” he continued. “I’m double-masking in the house.”
DeGeneres has since announced that she’s recovering.
“I’m feeling 100%. I feel really good,” she said in a Thursday Instagram post thanking followers for their well wishes.
“One thing that they don’t tell you is you get, somehow, excruciating back pain. Didn’t know that that was a symptom,” she said lightheartedly. “Who knew? How come? Back pain. Bad.”
In a case of life imitating art, Odom, who won a Tony award for his role as Aaron Burr in Hamilton, and his wife, who starred in the Broadway musical Waitress, worked together on Love in the Time of Corona. The four-episode series was one of the first shot during the pandemic in which the couple played a married couple, James and Sade, trying to decide whether or not to have another baby.
They filmed it in their home with a socially distanced crew and used friends and family as production assistants. They also did their own makeup and wore their own clothes.
“Our plate was kind of full like everyone else’s was,” Odom told NPR. “We’re parents, and we’re children of people that are in the vulnerable population, and we’re Black people in America, you know, there’s a lot of things that we’re dealing with in this house and unpacking every day, so if we are going to make art right now, what is our responsibility to this moment?”
Well, it certainly worked out for them. The couple announced their pregnancy on Instagram in November.
According to Broadway.com, the two met in the theater world while on the set of Once On This Island. Initially, there was much chemistry between the two, but it appears to have blossomed well.
“It was not a romantic thing at first,” Robinson told Broadway.com. “It was really just a human connection like, ‘Wow, I need to be around this person all the time.’ We stayed in touch after the show and started dating pretty soon afterwards. We didn’t know if the first date was the first date, but it ended up being the first date. None of us were saying that it was a date, but then it for sure was a date when he kissed me at the end of the night.”
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The couple celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary on Dec. 1. Odom will next appear as Sam Cooke in Regina King‘s critically acclaimed feature film directorial debut, One Night in Miami.
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