Emily Mack
Wanda Sykes is a familiar face on TV. But the comedian’s wife is less well known. Who is Alex Niedbalski?
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Wanda Sykes Comes Out
Wanda Sykes was raised in Maryland and began her stand-up career when she was 23 years old. She living and working in Washington, DC at the National Security Agency when she performed in front of an audience for the first time in 1987. Sykes continued to work at the NSA while pursuing comedy until 1992 when she moved to New York City.
Sykes’ big break came a few years later after opening for Chris Rock Caroline’s Comedy Club. Soon after, she joined the writing team of The Chris Rock Show. In 1999, she, along with the other writers won an Emmy for their work. And as Sykes gained famed throughout the early 2000s, she became popular for, essentially, playing herself.
Sykes played herself regularly on Curb Your Enthusiasm, stared in the semi-autobiographical sitcom Wanda at Large in 2003, and filmed a Comedy Central special the same year. The following year she filmed another short-lived sitcom, Wanda Does It, for the network.
In 2006, Sykes joined the cast of The New Adventures of Old Christine, opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and remained on the show for five seasons. She also landed her own talk shoe in 2009: The Wanda Sykes Show.
And as Sykes’ comedy career took off, she was also making some major personal changes. Throughout her early years in Washington, D.C. and New York City, she was married to record producer Dave Hall. The couple married in 1991 and divorced in 1998. And it would take another ten years for Sykes to publicly come out as a lesbian.
“If you won’t believe in same-sex marriage, then don’t marry somebody of the same sex.”
— Wanda Sykes
Protesting against Proposition 8 in November of 2008, Sykes came out at a Las Vegas rally, defending the right to same-sex marriage. At that time, it turned out, she was already married to a woman. Sykes had wed a French woman, Alex Niedbalski, one month before the event in Las Vegas. The pair had met in 2006. And in 2009, the women became parents when Niedbalski gave birth to a set of fraternal twins: daughter Olivia and son Lucas.
Since coming out, Sykes has remained a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. Watch the video above and let Wanda — with her hilarious, familiar voice — take you through the history of gay liberation… from the ancient affairs of Socrates to America’s legalization of gay marriage.
Alex Niedbalski
Like so many gay love stories, the relationship of Wanda Sykes and Alex Niedblaski began on Fire Island. Sykes first spotted the French beauty while taking a ferry to the New York’s gay resort getaway. “Something really said to me – like, audibly – ‘Wow, that’s what you need, Wanda,’” Sykes said of the moment, speaking to The Guardian in 2018. Later on in the trip, a mutual friend introduced Sykes — who was remodeling her kitchen — to the Frenchwoman — who turned out to sell granite countertops.
And the rest is history.
Niedblaski, who also goes by Alex Sykes, keeps a pretty low profile. But her Instagram offers a colorful glimpse into her happy life with Wanda.
