Actor Maria Bello and Chef Dominique Crenn Got Married and Their Playlist Was Perfection

Today People Magazine announced that actress Maria Bello, 57, and her girlfriend, acclaimed French chef Dominique Crenn, 59, got married on Sunday at luxury resort Montage Los Cabos in Mexico, an event for which Dominique Crenn out-gayed us all by wearing a button-up vest with no shirt underneath and Maria Bello was extremely pretty in pink. (Both brides wore Dior.) Their 140-strong guest list included Patricia Arquette, Gavin Rossdale (of Bush) and Bello’s very close friend Mariska Hargitay (of Olivia Benson). Everybody looked very hot and very happy. People describes the wedding as “chic” and “bohemian.”

Crenn also achieved peak lesbian status by being walked down the aisle by her ex-wife’s mother, Peggy Keon, as well as her two 10-year old daughters (whom she shares with ex, Katherine Keon.) They did so to the dulcet tones of Prince’s “Kiss.”

Bello walked the aisle with her mother, Kathy, and her 23-year-old son, Jackson, to the dulcet tones of “Time Flies” by Burna Boy.

The ceremony ended with classic gay party jam “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston. They did their first dance to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.”

The couple chose Mexico for their wedding because they spent so much time there during the COVID-19 pandemic. The menu was a primary focus of the event due to Crenn’s culinary background. (Crenn is the only female chef in America to earn three Michelin stars, which have been awarded to Altelier Crenn, her San Francisco restaurant.) Montage’s executive chef, Xavier Salomon, prepared a family-style meal curated for the couple that fused Cabo and California farm-to-table cuisine.

Maria Bello and Dominique Crenn at the Time100 Most Influential People Gala held at Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 25, 2024 in New York, New York. (Photo by Lexie Moreland/WWD via Getty Images)

Maria Bello and Dominique Crenn at the Time100 Most Influential People Gala in April (Photo by Lexie Moreland/WWD via Getty Images)

When Maria Bello came out in a Modern Love column in The New York Times in 2013, it was a surprise to most of the world — and to Maria herself, who wrote of a long road towards figuring out her sexuality and the fluid family structure she’d adopted, including maintaining a close, platonic relationship with her son’s father, TV Executive Dan McDermott. At the time, Bello had fallen in love with her best friend, activist Claire Munn. She published a book, Whatever… Love is Love: Questioning the Labels We Give Ourselves in 2015. Her and Munn split up that same year. Bello then dated Elijah Allan-Blitz, a “virtual reality director for mindfulness teaching.”

By 2019, she was happily in love with and engaged to Dominique Crenn.

“We’re pretty happy, considering that we just got engaged,” Bello said when her and Crenn made their first public appearance together as an engaged couple at Elton John’s annual Oscar party. “So this is sort of our fun time out in Hollywood for the first time. It was very surprising and meant to be, but about time. I’ve finally grown up enough to get married.”

In 2020, the couple spoke to People Magazine about Crenn’s breast cancer diagnosis, which happened shortly after they fell in love. Crenn told People that Bello was there by her side through it all. “Listen, I just knew. I just knew and so did she. I’ve never smiled as much as I have this last year,” said Bello, adding that, “You really learn how someone rolls when they’re sick. And I loved the way she rolls through life and dances through life even when she’s really sick.”

When speaking to People about the wedding, Bello shared: “Dom and I have been through the three C’s: cancer, Covid and now commitment. I’ve never been married. Even to my son’s dad. I’ve never taken that step. And that’s an exciting thing too in the second half of my life, deciding who I want to be with, choosing the person that I want to be with.”

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

Riese

Riese is the 43-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3271 articles for us.

2 Comments

  1. “When Maria Bello came out in a Modern Love column in The New York Times in 2013, it was a surprise to most of the world — and to Maria herself”

    clearly she didn’t see herself in Coyote Ugly, then she would have known.

Contribute to the conversation...

Yay! You've decided to leave a comment. That's fantastic. Please keep in mind that comments are moderated by the guidelines laid out in our comment policy. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation and thanks for stopping by!