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Marriage Quote by Damon Wayans

"And my marriage was perfect when I wasn't famous"

About this Quote

Fame is the third person in this marriage, and Damon Wayans lands that truth with the casual brutality of a punchline. The line is built on a bait-and-switch: you expect a confession about incompatibility, money, or infidelity; instead he pins the “problem” on celebrity itself, treating it like a solvent that dissolves whatever used to hold. “Perfect” is obviously doing comedic work here - an exaggeration with a wince behind it. It signals nostalgia and self-protection at once: if the marriage was “perfect,” then the rupture can be blamed on an outside force, not on ordinary human failure.

The subtext is sharper: fame doesn’t just add stress; it rewrites the rules of intimacy. Privacy becomes a commodity, time becomes a public resource, and the couple stops being two people and starts being an image managed by agents, fans, and gossip. Even if no tabloids are involved, celebrity can still turn the home into a backstage area where the “real” self is always recovering from performance. That’s a uniquely comic tragedy: the thing that makes you successful at being seen can make you worse at being known.

Wayans also smuggles in a class story. Before fame, a marriage can be imperfect in quiet, with room to repair. After fame, every conflict is amplified by access, temptation, and the subtle entitlement that arrives when strangers laugh on command. The joke isn’t “my spouse couldn’t handle it.” It’s “I couldn’t keep it human once the world wanted a piece.”

Quote Details

TopicMarriage
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Wayans, Damon. (2026, January 17). And my marriage was perfect when I wasn't famous. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/and-my-marriage-was-perfect-when-i-wasnt-famous-38976/

Chicago Style
Wayans, Damon. "And my marriage was perfect when I wasn't famous." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/and-my-marriage-was-perfect-when-i-wasnt-famous-38976/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"And my marriage was perfect when I wasn't famous." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/and-my-marriage-was-perfect-when-i-wasnt-famous-38976/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Damon Wayans (born September 4, 1960) is a Comedian from USA.

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