The couple Samira Wiley and Lauren Morelli announced on Mother’s Day that they’re moms with Morelli carrying and giving birth to their daughter, George Elizabeth.
In an Instagram post, Wiley made the announcement last April 11, which meant they had kept Morelli’s pregnancy a secret for over nine months.
Samira Wiley, Lauren Morelli, and George make 3
Baby George is the first child of Morelli, who is known for writing the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, and Wiley, who starred in that show and recently starred in The Handmaid’s Tale.
Wiley said in her post, “Happy 1st Mother’s Day to my beautiful wife, who four weeks ago today after laboring for almost 3 days gave birth to our first child—our gorgeous daughter, George.”
“Welcome to the world, babygirl. We love you and we thank you for giving us the best 1st Mother’s Day two ladies could ask for,” Wiley added.
Meanwhile, Morelli said something similar in her own post: “4 weeks ago today, our daughter came into the world and changed everything. We are so happy, so grateful, and so tired.”
Celebrity couple Samira Wiley and Lauren Morelli
The two first met and became friends in 2012 on the set of Orange is the New Black. As mentioned, Morelli was the leader writer for the show while Wiley played Poussey Washington.
At that time, Morelli was still married to Stephen Basilone. However, after spending spending time with Wiley to write a few scenes about her, they found they had a immediate connection.
In an interview with Out Magazine in 2016, Morelli said that she “immediately had a crush on” Wiley after seeing her audition tape.
During her time working on the Netflix series, Morelli realized she was gay and Wiley– who had been out since she was in her 20s– helped her understand her feeling about her sexuality.
Speaking to Bust in 2018, Wiley said that her relationship with Morelli wasn’t sexual, “it was just like a friend. There was something deeply intimate about that, whether there was sexual tension there or not.”
A lesbian power couple in Hollywood
After divorcing her husband in 2014, Morelli and Wiley officially began dating. A year after, they took a trip to Thailand they described as a “total disaster.”
However, it strengthened their relationship such that by 2016, Morelli proposed to Wiley and the actress announced their engagement with a photo on Instagram with a caption, “Yes.”
A year later, they got married in Palm Springs, California. Wiley told Cosmopolitan UK in 2021 that it was “the best day of my life.”
Morelli said in an interview with Vulture, “It just shifted my perception of where I belong, and once I belonged to her, it suddenly felt like I was able to take up more space.”