'Mathis Matters' Gave Them The Courage to Be Openly in Love

 By Valeriya Safronova

 The New York Times 

On Valentine’s Day in 2016, after a singles bar crawl on H Street in Washington with friends, Gregory Malik Mathis invited the group back to his apartment. At the end of the evening, as everyone slowly trickled out, one person, a friend of a friend named Richard Elliott Cooper, stayed behind.

“There is a debate about who made the first move,” said Mr. Mathis, who interpreted Mr. Cooper’s reluctance to leave as a signal.

“I tell everyone it was Greg,” Mr. Cooper said. “He was sitting on the couch, and he said, ‘Why don’t you come on over and sit beside me?’”

“That was a big step for me because I wouldn’t say anything like that normally,” Mr. Mathis said.

The two quickly clicked. Mr. Mathis was engaged by Mr. Cooper’s intellect, and Mr. Cooper found Mr. Mathis to be “completely genuine.” 

At the time, neither of them was openly gay (though Mr. Mathis had come out to his family and close friends in college), so for the next two or so years, they kept their love private. Slowly, they began revealing their relationship to family, friends and acquaintances, and years later, in June 2022, they came out to the world on “Mathis Family Matters,” a reality show on E! network about Mr. Mathis’s family. Mr. Mathis’s father is Gregory Ellis Mathis, best known for his 24-season daytime television show, “Judge Mathis.”

Mr. Mathis, 35, grew up in Detroit and Los Angeles and studied political science at the University of Michigan before leaving college in 2012 to be a staff assistant for the civil rights activist and politician Jesse L. Jackson Jr. Later, he was a deputy field organizer in Ohio for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012. After that, Mr. Mathis worked in politics for nearly a decade, most recently as a senior policy adviser for Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, from 2018 to 2021. 

\Two suit coats resting on hangers; one is part of a navy blue suit, and the other is purple.

Mr. Mathis wore a navy blue suit, a nod to the University of Michigan; Mr. Cooper honored his mother with purple, a color used to promote lupus awareness.Credit...MC Weddings

 

Two sets of cuff links are resting next to a pair of black shoes and part of a wedding invitation.

They also wore matching cuff links and shoes. Their suits were by the British fashion brand Sperdon.Credit...MC Weddings

Mr. Cooper, 40, has a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Clemson University and has worked for Accenture Federal Services since 2010. He’s a senior manager with a portfolio that covers areas like the Armed Forces and the Census Bureau.

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For their first date in March 2016, Mr. Mathis decided to impress Mr. Cooper with a fancy meal. After consulting with a friend, he prepared a three-course dinner that started with burrata, an Italian cheese, with basil and balsamic vinegar. 

“I’m from a small town in South Carolina,” said Mr. Cooper, who grew up in Moncks Corner, about 15 minutes outside Charleston. “We don’t do burrata.” He recalled wondering at the time, “Why can’t we just have salad?”

As Mr. Mathis and Mr. Cooper began dating, the burrata became a long-running joke. Three months after their first date, they went on a trip together to the Poconos in Pennsylvania.

“It’s a real test if you can last 48 to 72 hours with just them,” Mr. Cooper said of evaluating a potential romantic partner.

Soon after, Mr. Mathis told Mr. Cooper he loved him. “I really fell in love with his constant will to change and grow,” Mr. Mathis said. “We had a lot of deep convos that made me feel like our souls are aligned. We both care about faith and family, and I felt like he was a good, genuine person who had my best interests at heart.”

But they kept their relationship close to their chests, afraid of how people in their social and professional circles would respond to their sexualities.

The grooms, dressed in suits, kissing in front of a circular wedding arch decorated with florals.

The grooms sharing a kiss after the ceremony.Credit...MC Weddings

“There was this feeling when I was on the Hill related to the Army policy ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’” Mr. Mathis said, referring to the official stance the U.S. military had on homosexual members until 2011. “In our friend group, I wasn’t the only one living this way. There were a lot of young Black men working in politics who weren’t comfortable being public.” They were worried, he said, that “they might not get invited to the golf course or the fund-raiser or get close to the circles they want to be in.” 

Mr. Cooper also struggled with sharing his sexuality publicly.

“I publicly dated women,” Mr. Cooper said. “I was engaged to a woman before and I didn’t go through with the marriage because of me questioning my sexuality. After that, I kind of left it as a mystery to friends and anyone else, but internally I knew what I wanted.”

In the summer of 2016, Mr. Mathis and Mr. Cooper went to Detroit for the baby shower of Mr. Mathis’s older sister, Camara Mathis.

Nervous about meeting Mr. Mathis’s father and his mother, Linda Reese, for the first time, Mr. Cooper said, “I distinctly remember going up the escalator to the hotel repeating what my name was just to make sure I wouldn’t freeze when I got to them.”

At the party, in one big swoop, Mr. Cooper met Mr. Mathis’s extended family: siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles.

“It was a culture shock and appreciation to see how his family loved on him despite his sexuality,” Mr. Cooper said. The experience “shattered a lot of the shyness and nervousness I had,” he added. “That was my initial real feeling they’re accepting me for me.” 

About a year later, in November 2017, he and Mr. Mathis moved in together in Washington. Eventually, they decided to tell their wider circles about their romance.

“I had a big revelation after two or three years together,” Mr. Cooper said. “I was one person during the day and one person in the night. I ended up telling my friends because I felt more confident in the relationship, and I think I owed it to my friends, who loved me regardless of who I loved.”

In 2021, Mr. Mathis’s brother, Amir Mathis, a film and television producer, came up with an idea to make a reality show about his life. Quickly, the idea expanded to encompass his family.

Gregory Mathis standing beside his father, Gregory Ellis-Lee Mathis.

Mr. Mathis with his father, Gregory Ellis-Lee Mathis, who is best known for his daytime television show, “Judge Mathis.”Credit...MC Weddings

“We came out to L.A. for the sizzle reel,” Mr. Cooper said, adding that they wondered: “What if this really happens? Will we be public? Are we comfortable with doing that?”

In November 2021, they moved to Los Angeles to film the show, and Mr. Mathis quit his job to pursue a longtime dream of becoming an actor. 

“Our show was very real to our lives,” Mr. Mathis said. “But you do have to produce your life. Elliott and I have to have this conversation about something, and they’re like, ‘Don’t have it until we can bring the cameras and record it.’”

In one particularly emotional scene, Mr. Mathis and Mr. Cooper talked to Mr. Mathis’s father about keeping their relationship secret from colleagues in Washington, D.C.

“My dad burst out crying because it hit him then, the difficulty of living as two different people and not being able to be your full self,” Mr. Mathis said. The premier episode aired in June 2022.

“I thought it was just a conversation, but after it came out, it started to hit us,” Mr. Mathis said of the scene. “We got so many messages — nasty ones, too, but the uplifting ones were great. We heard from parents about how it affected how they interact with their own children, and those stories were really wonderful.”

Last year, Mr. Cooper invited his and Mr. Mathis’s friends and family to Los Angeles for the Walk to End Lupus Now, which he was hosting. Mr. Cooper’s mother, Patricia Sanders Cooper, died from complications related to lupus in 2005; for years, he has volunteered with the Lupus Foundation of America. But unbeknown to Mr. Mathis, the invitation was not just for the fund-raising event.

On Sept. 29, 2023, the day before the walk, Mr. Cooper brought Mr. Mathis to République, a French restaurant in Los Angeles. During dinner, Mr. Cooper dropped to his knee and asked Mr. Mathis to marry him. 

Afterward, they went back to their apartment, where around 20 friends and family members were waiting to surprise Mr. Mathis.

“Everybody was hugging us,” Mr. Cooper said. “It was a beautiful night. We had champagne and burrata.”

They were married on Sept. 29 on the balcony of their apartment in Los Angeles by Alix Itkis, who was ordained by the Universal Life Church. On Oct. 21, their fathers, Mr. Mathis and Sgt. Calvin Cooper, led a marriage ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

The grooms have legally changed their surnames to Mathis-Cooper. “It was about making sure we solidified our family,” Mr. Mathis said. “We want our children to have the same last name as us and for us to be a full unit.”

They invited only 15 guests to the celebration, all family members, as they wanted to keep the event relaxing and intimate. For the registry, the grooms requested donations to the Lupus Foundation of America and Better Brothers Los Angeles, which provides educational scholarships to the L.G.B.T.Q. community. 

The two grooms, in silhouette, watching the sun set over an ocean.

A highlight of the event was their walk down the aisle toward their fathers, which was “even more moving than we’d imagined,” Mr. Mathis said. “Seeing the emotion on their faces as they waited for us was incredibly touching.”

“We had a lot of deep convos that made me feel like our souls are aligned,” Mr. Mathis said. “We both care about faith and family, and I felt like he was a good, genuine person who had my best interests at heart.”Credit...MC Weddings