Zawe Ashton is clarifying the status of her relationship with longtime love Tom Hiddleston.
If you didn’t know, the 41-year-old Velvet Buzzsaw actress and the 44-year-old Loki actor met while working on the play Betrayal in London in 2019. They later reprised their roles on Broadway. The couple confirmed their engagement in June 2022 and they welcomed their first child together in October 2022.
While announcing that she’s pregnant with their second child, Zawe referred to Tom as her “husband.”
In a new interview, Zawe clarified that she and Tom are not married yet.
Keep reading to find out more…“We’ve been engaged for a long time and there are, I think there have been publications that have named us husband and wife already,” Zawe shared on the Miss Me? podcast, adding that it led to some awkward conversations with some of their family and friends.
“…There’s some toxic paragraphs that were thrown my way like, ‘Okay, no invite, whatever.’ It’s like, ‘No, no, no, it didn’t happen,’” she explained. “We didn’t do it in secret. It’s just like a semantic thing.”
Zawe went on to admit that in private, she and Tom “call each other husband and wife” because it didn’t “feel right” to call each other “boyfriend” and “girlfriend,” especially now that they’re expecting their second child together. She further explained that she has considered their engagement period as a sort of “training ground” for marriage.
“It is the practicing [of] calling each other husband and wife,” she explained. “It is looking down at the ring finger and being like, ‘Okay, this is the tradition that is potentially gonna come with this first yes.’”
“So you do already say, ‘My husband.’ That’s quite nice,” podcast host Miquita Oliver chimed in at one point. “But you might have to actually have a wedding soon.”
“Yeah. But it’s also pissing off people who are actually marrying,” Zawe replied. “So like, you realize that’s just not real yet. And so, yeah.”
However, Zawe noted that she and Tom have “thought about it” in “different ways,” and admitted that she finds the “reality of marriage” a “little bit more scary” than the thought of a wedding.
As for now, the couple are enjoying their engagement period.
“People kind of rush through engagement, and I’m like, ‘Engagement is really useful.’ Why is everyone like, ‘I’m getting engaged to get married?’” Zawe said.
“Be engaged. Work things out,” she continued. “Because that’s like a big— that’s a big yes that opens up a whole new tapestry of understanding between you, between you and each other’s families, because you are saying yes to each other’s [families].”
“So, I’ve loved engagement, because you’re learning,” Zawe added. “You’re like, ‘What is this yes gonna be later?’ This is like a notch up from just being partners, boyfriend and girlfriend.”
If you missed it, Tom shared an update on Avengers: Doomsday!
