Riki Lindhome and Fred Armisen secretly tied the knot two years ago.
Riki Lindhome and Fred Armisen secretly wed two years ago
The 45-year-old actress and the 57-year-old ‘SNL’ alum had been friends for over 15 years but it was only when they started filming ‘Wednesday’ together in Romania that her feelings for him changed.
However, things were complicated as Riki had decided to have a child on her own via surrogacy with a donated sperm and egg.
She told PEOPLE: “I knew that I was starting to have feelings for him, and I wanted to go on a date. That’s what I knew. So I was like, ‘Okay, let’s explore’. Then it unfolded naturally over time. I wasn’t like, ‘You’re the dad.’ I was like, ‘I want to have dinner with you.’ My thought was, ‘I want to kiss you. I want to see you.’ Then it just kept going.
“We were friends for so long that it just happened fast. We had one dinner and then it was like, ‘Oh, yeah, let’s see where this goes.’ It was surprising. I would say it was more of a shock to him. He did not see it coming at all.”
Baby Keaton was born just a few weeks after the pair started dating but Riki told Fred that she would understand if he didn’t want to be involved.
She said: “He didn’t get to meet Keaton until three weeks after he was born because he was still working. And I said, ‘All I want is the truth. If you feel in your gut that’s not for you, it doesn’t make you a jerk. I’m not mad at you’. I said, ‘I still think you’re the best. I just want you to really feel what you feel. And then be honest about it because it’s a big life-altering thing.’ And he said, ‘Okay, okay.’
“I told him, ‘So you just tell me what your heart says, and he said ‘Yes.’ It was just insta-family, basically..”
Riki moved in to Fred’s house after Keaton was born and three months later the couple got married.
She explained: “I was ready to date him, I didn’t know what it would turn into. I thought maybe I would be a single mom with a boyfriend. I didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t even know if he was interested at first — I didn’t know anything. But it was a natural evolution.
“Then we got married in a courthouse. It’s not a secret, but we didn’t really tell people. We didn’t announce it or anything. And we thought people would hear about it eventually. And that’s what happened, one friend at a time.
“I didn’t even tell my mom. I never wanted to get married. I am not a wedding person. It’s not for me. But this was just for us. We also didn’t want to hurt people’s feelings by not having a wedding — and we didn’t want to get pressured into having one. We just wanted to be like, ‘Guess what we did a few months ago?’
“The wedding was three minutes long and then we got some ice cream.”
