Revealed: Mayor Dinkins Married Billie Jean King and Ilana Koss in Private

Billie Jean King reveals she’s gotten married in private after hesitating for years

By Juwan J. Holmes
LGBTQ Nation
August 15, 2021

Excerpts:

Although she helped to advance LGBTQ rights for decades and fought for marriage equality for years, Billie Jean King resisted marriage herself. She turned down an offer from Elton John to sing at the wedding. She didn’t do it after John McEnroe’s pushed her to do it in Las Vegas.

But King is now revealing that eventually, she did in fact decide to get married. In fact, she and her partner of 42 years, Ilana Kloss, did it about three years ago. No one knew about it — other than the former mayor of New York that officiated it, his wife, an “aide” that witnessed it, and the city employee who issued their license.

King tied the knot with Kloss on October 18, 2018, but she’s only revealing it publicly now in her memoir, All-In, and with an interview in People Magazine. Family and friends only found out when they received advanced copies of All-In, which goes on sale on August 17.

King also shared their only “wedding” photo with People, posing with former New York City mayor David Dinkins and his wife, Joyce. Dinkins officiated the wedding in his home, with his aide as the witness. Mayor Dinkins passed away on November 23, 2020, just a month after Joyce on October 10.

“In the fall of 2018, Ilana and I called our good friend David Dinkins… and told him we were ready to take him up on an offer he’d been making to us for years: ‘If you ever get married, I’m your guy!'”

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