P-Valley star J. Alphonse Nicholson and his partner Nafeesha Nicholson have tied the knot!
According to Essence, the Nicholsons got married during an Oct. 7 wedding ceremony filled with friends and family. In his speech, J. Alphonse said that when he met his wife in 2016, he was still trying to make it in the acting industry, acting on stage in Oakland while playing buckets as a drummer in New York City subway stations. Despite his hardships, she stayed with him.
"She told me, and I believe her, that if that never changed she would be with me to this day," he said.
The wedding guests included Lance Gross and his wife Rebecca, Sheria Irving (who will be seen in FX’s upcoming Octavia Butler series Kindred), The Chi‘s Miriam A. Hyman and her partner, actors and married couple Jerry O’Connell and Rebecca Romijn, and a vocal performance by Adrian Marcel, according to Essence. Husband and wife chef duo Neal Fraser and Amy Knoll Fraser also catered the event at their Los Angeles location, the Vibiana.
The event also included J. Alphonse doing a drumming performance reminiscent of his time in the subway stations, as well as a cannabis bar complete with products from The Phonzie, the cannabis company J. Alphonse co-owns with Black-owned Ball Family Farms.
The couple became engaged in 2019, but then the coronavirus pandemic happened, putting things on hold. The two also lived long distance, but were finally able to become a family when they moved in together in Los Angeles. J. Alphonse told the outlet that they used that time to get to know each other, and their children, more. J. Alphonse has a son from a prior relationship, and Nafessa has a daughter, also from a prior relationship.
"We just hung out and had a great time and just fell more and more in love with each other," he said to Essence.
“We spent some quality time with our children and towards the end of the pandemic, I told her…’Listen, I’m not trying to wait. We got to have this wedding, but I’m not trying to wait to have it. So can we just go down to this little spot, get married, and go ahead and get my ring on my finger?’ She already had one. I wanted mine. So we made that happen and started to think about a date for the actual wedding.”
J. Alphonse has openly talked about how much his wife means to him, telling Revolt's Black Girl Stuff that he sees her as "the strongest woman I ever met."
“I knew she was built for the lifestyle that I was going to create for myself as an actor and a storyteller prior to any of this really happening,” he said in August. “She caught me at the very beginning of my career, so we’ve been prepared for this.”
“She was there every step of the way that happened with P-Valley, from the time I met [series creator] Katori [Hall] to the conception of Lil Murda and everything that he is now,” he continued. “It’s rare that you meet someone as strong as Nafeesha Nicholson, but I’m grateful that I have her in my corner.”
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