Heavy/Getty Nikki DeLoach
Longtime Hallmark star Nikki DeLoach has mastered playing characters falling in love onscreen. But when it comes to staying in love — and staying happy in a marriage — the actress and screenwriter feels unqualified to offer anyone advice.
In an interview with Swooon on November 1, 2024 — ahead of the premiere of her latest Hallmark romcom, “Our Holiday Story” co-starring Warren Christie — DeLoach said that despite being married for 15 years to former boy band singer and current entertainment lawyer Ryan Goodell since 2009, she feels like she can’t give others advice because she only knows what works in her own union.
“I always say to people I have no marriage advice,” she told the outet. “I don’t know what a successful marriage looks like. I just know what my marriage is like because I’m in it, and everybody’s so different.”
Nikki DeLoach Says She Loves Her Husband More Each Year
Explaining how she and Goodell have weathered storms in their marriage, including their youngest son requiring three heart surgeries, DeLoach told Swooon, ““It’s a choice that we make every day when we wake up next to the person that we’re married to and the person that we love, and it’s a choice that we have to make of like, I accept you, I love you, you are mine. Let’s do this.”
“I’ve been married to my husband for 15 years and have been together 25 years,” DeLoach added, “and the only thing I can share is I just wake up each day, and I choose him, and then we get through that day together.”
On September 5, DeLoach marked the couple’s 15th anniversary by posting a photo from their wedding, sharing how grateful she is for walking through life with Goodell.
“We’ve known better and worse,” she wrote. “We’ve had years where we didn’t know how we would make rent, but together, we always figured it out. And we’ve always been rich in love, family, friends and community. We’ve faced sickness. And we’ve experienced the miracle of healing and good health. And through it all, I have loved you more with each passing year. Happy Anniversary, babe. I love you so much.”
DeLoach and Goodell met when they were teens working in the entertainment industry in Orlando. She was part of the “Mickey Mouse Club” alongside future music superstars like Justin Timberlake (still one of her besties) and Christina Aguilera, and later joined a world-touring girl group called Innosense — a time fraught with uncertainty and financial woes, she told The Retaility in 2023. Goodell, meanwhile, was part of the boy band Take 5.
The two decided to move together to Los Angeles where she enrolled in community college and he began law school, she told the outlet.
Liv Lane is an entertainment writer who covers the Hallmark Channel, HGTV, American Idol and The Voice for Heavy. Based in Minneapolis, she has three decades of experience as a local and national radio host, columnist and publicist, interviewing and working with a wide range of celebrities over the years, from Deepak Chopra to Lil Nas X. More about Liv Lane
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