Bill De Blasio And Wife Chirlane McCray Split But Will Live Together

Former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and wife Chirlane McCray have decided to separate but will continue to live together while they date other people.

The power couple, one of politics’ most prominent interracial couples, opened up about their trial separation in a remarkably intimate interview published by The New York Times on Wednesday , in which they talked about how things changed and where their nearly 30-year marriage is going.

“You can feel when things are off,” the 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful  said of their mutual decision to separate in May. “And you don’t want to live that way.”

De Blasio and McCray said they are not divorcing and will continue to live together in their Brooklyn townhouse while both wade into the dating pool.

“One of the things we’re saying to the world is we don’t need to possess each other,” de Blasio told the Times.

“I just want to have fun,” McCray said.

The couple said they’ve talked “ground rules” around seeing other people, hashing out “what’s cool, and what’s not cool, and whatever else,” according to de Blasio.

De Blasio and McCray, who share two children in their 20s, both hinted in the interview at being eager to date. She joked about putting the pair’s phone numbers in the article, while de Blasio suggested a gym picture might work. He also admitted he’s “not a believer” in online dating.

De Blasio and McCray married in 1994 after meeting while working together in then-New York Mayor David Dinkins’ office. While McCray identified as a lesbian when she met de Blasio, she told the Times, “He was very easy to fall in love with.”

McCray talked more about that connection in a 2020 interview with Essence . She explained, “I came out at 17. I hadn’t really dated any men. I thought, Whoa, what is this? But I also didn’t think, Oh, now I’m attracted to men. I was attracted to Bill. He felt like the perfect person for me.”

“For two people who look so different, we have a lot in common,” she continued. “We are a very conventional, unconventional couple.”

While McCray said she didn’t identify as bisexual or any other “label,” she also told Essence at the time, “I’m married, I’m monogamous, but I’m not dead and Bill isn’t either.”

McCray was a prominent influence during de Blasio’s time as mayor from 2014 to 2021. But the political pressure took a toll on their relationship.

“How can you be a couple in the fullness of what you tend to think,” McCray said to the Times, “when you’ve got this responsibility on your shoulders and you don’t want to add to that?”

Once de Blasio embarked on his presidential campaign in 2019, they noticed another shift in their marriage.

“I thought it was a distraction,” McCray said of the campaign, adding how her opposition was “not the kind of thing where you can break ranks.”

“That’s part of the difficulty of being part of a package,” she explained.

McCray told the Associated Press she and de Blasio gave the interview to tell their story in their own words, explaining, “As very public people embarking on a new chapter, we thought it better to say all this openly before anyone tries to find negativity, or before any misunderstandings occur.”

She added that she and de Blasio “have only respect and admiration for each other, and the sense of wonder that we ever found each other to begin with.”