Bill de Blasio wondered if marrying a self-identified lesbian meant there was a 'time bomb ticking' in his marriage

Years before marrying de Blasio, Chirlane McCray published an essay titled "I Am a Lesbian." The couple announced their separation on Wednesday.

• Bill de Blasio and Chirlane McCray on Wednesday announced their separation.
• McCray publicly identified as a lesbian when she began dating de Blasio in the 1990s.
• De Blasio recalled wondering if there was "a time bomb ticking" in their marriage because of it.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City and his wife, Chirlane McCray, announced on Wednesday that they're separating after nearly 30 years of marriage.

In an interview with The New York Times, the couple cited de Blasio's ill-fated 2020 presidential campaign and his eight-year mayoral tenure as putting a strain on the relationship.

And de Blasio noted that he had some initial doubts about the pairing — given that McCray had once publicly identified herself as a lesbian.

"For the guy who took the chance on a woman who was an out lesbian and wrote an article called 'I Am a Lesbian,'" de Blasio told the Times, "there was a part of me that would at times say, 'Hmmm, is this like a time bomb ticking? Is this something that you're going to regret later on?' So I always lived with that stuff."

McCray wrote that article for Essence Magazine in 1979, over a decade before she met de Blasio when they both worked for Mayor David Dinkins.

"I discovered my preference for women early, before getting locked into a traditional marriage and having children," McCray wrote at the time.

In a 2013 interview with the same magazine, McCray — by then married to de Blasio for nearly two decades — said she fell in love with de Blasio by "putting aside the assumptions I had about the form and package my love would come in."

Asked at the time whether she then considered herself bisexual, McCray demurred.

"I am more than just a label," she said. "Why are people so driven to labeling where we fall on the sexual spectrum? Labels put people in boxes, and those boxes are shaped like coffins."

Correction: July 7, 2023 — An earlier version of this story misstated how long Bill de Blasio served as New York City mayor. He served eight years, not seven years.