Oh my! George Takei is another year older, and another year wiser, and we’re another year more grateful.
The actor, best known for playing Hikaru Sulu in the Star Trek universe, celebrated his 89th birthday on April 20, and over seven decades into his career, he’s still going strong!
Although, for none is the day a more special one than his longtime partner and husband of nearly two decades, Brad Altman. While the pair have only been married since 2008, their relationship stretches back far longer.
Take a look at George’s loving relationship with his partner, including the many times they’ve even broken records together…
Who is Brad Altman?
Brad Altman, now Brad Takei, was a financial journalist when he and George first met back, but a few years after they started dating, he pivoted to becoming his future husband’s business partner and manager.
“I helped George with some of his public relations, press releases and various projects,” he explained during an appearance on Oh Myyy Pod!. “He needed somebody to help make sure that things got accomplished so that he could be a visionary and artist and I could do the detail work — and it sort of gradually evolved that I became his business manager.”
When did George and Brad meet?
The couple first met in the 1980s, when George, who was not publicly out at the time, joined the Frontrunners, an LGBTQ+ run club based in Los Angeles that he and Brad have advocated for and supported for decades since.
© Getty ImagesDuring an appearance on an episode of Oprah: Where Are They Now?, George recalled: “[Brad] was the best runner in the club. And also great-looking. So I went up to him and I asked him to train me for my first marathon. Before long, we became partners.”
Going public
The couple dated for 18 years before finally going public with their relationship in 2005. While George was out to friends and family, and his sexuality was an open secret among Star Trek fans, he didn’t publicly acknowledge it until a 2005 interview with Frontiers magazine in response to then-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoing the same-sex marriage bill.
“Because of the changing public and political climate, I think we need to get the numbers, and I can play a part in trying to bring some rationality to our society,” he said at the time, later telling The Progressive Magazine of the move: “I’ve been together with my partner Brad Altman for two decades now.”
© Getty Images“We’ve been out with our family and friends and with various activities we’re involved with in the civic community. We support nonprofits. Our names have been engraved together in granite on donors’ walls. So we’ve been out, in that sense. But what I’d not done is talk to the press, you guys, because you’re a whole different ball game.”
Marriage and making history
In May 2008, George and Brad announced they were getting married, becoming the first same-sex couple in West Hollywood to obtain a marriage license, in the duration that same-sex marriage was legal in California before Proposition 8 halted it.
They tied the knot at the Japanese American National Museum in LA that September, with George’s Star Trek co-stars Walter Koenig and Nichelle Nichols serving as his best man and “best woman” respectively.
© Getty ImagesThey made history once again in 2009 when they both appeared on The Newlywed Game, becoming the first same-sex couple to do so, for a special celebrity edition, winning $10,000 for their charity, aka the same museum where they got married. They remain active LGBTQ+ rights advocates nearly 20 years into their marriage.
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