Inside Tracee Ellis Ross's Private Love Life (2024)

Only one year shy of the big fifty, Tracee Ellis Ross epitomizes success in every possible way. The ever-so-positive Black-ish star is not only a Golden Globe Award recipient, but she is also an entrepreneur, thanks to her voluminous natural hair. In addition to having a thriving acting career, she embodies what it means to live wholly, even without a partner or children in sight.

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For years, Tracee Ellis Ross has been extremely quiet when it comes to her love life. Only once has she ever dated someone in the public eye. More often than not, the actress prefers to not talk about who she's seeing. These, however, are the few times we’ve gotten wind of where she is when it comes to relationships.

8 She Once Dated Music Executive, Abou ‘Bu’ Thiam

Although Tracee Ellis Ross is notoriously quiet about her love life, one relationship that made it to the limelight was hers with Abou Thiam, who is singer Akon’s little brother. News of Ross dating Thiam, who is currently Kanye West’s manager, broke back in 2011 when pictures of the two having the time of their lives at Ross’s 39th birthday party surfaced. The pair kept it low-key when it came to revealing details about their relationship, but was one too many times pictured together in public. While the exact timeline of their relationship is unknown, Ross and Thiam have since gone their separate ways.

Although Tracee and Thiam parted ways as a couple, the pair shares a not-so-common friendship. Back in 2016, Thiam confirmed that they did date, and were still very much in each other’s lives. “Me and Tracee gonna be lovers forever. You know what I’m sayin’? Like, I really do believe that. Me and her have this genuine unconditional relationship. You know, anybody that comes in my life, they have to know that. You know what I’m sayin’? And vice versa.”

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6 But They Can't Date Just Yet

If Thiam and Ross have such a great friendship, the big question would be why they are not together. If the love is mutual, why not just seal the deal? Thiam, while speaking to The Breakfast Club, said of where they were, “I believe that being with somebody is a real job. It’s a real responsibility. She’s in a place in her career that, if I can’t give her all of me, I don’t wanna waste…not say, waste her time. I don’t wanna put her in that space. I wanna give her the opportunity to find somebody else that can.”

5 A Fling With ‘Black-ish’ Creator, Kenya Barris?

Since Tracee has always been quiet when it comes to her love life, the public can is left with nothing but speculation. Early in 2020, rumors surfaced that Ross was in a relationship with Black-ish creator, Kenya Barris. Neither of them confirmed that they were an item, but the timing coincided with Barris’ separations from his wife, who was the inspiration behind Ross’s character on Black-ish, Dr. Rainbow Johnson. According to sources, the pair went their separate ways, and Barris called off his divorce.

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When Abou Thiam said he and Tracee Ellis Ross were lovers for life, he meant every word. As recent as 2020, the two were showing love for each other on Instagram. In a since-deleted post from March 2020, Abou shared a clip of Ross singing him the birthday song. In the post, Thiam said that Ross was always the first person to wish him a happy birthday. In April 2020, Thiam left a rather flirty comment on a post made by Ross. “But still fine,” he wrote, while accompanying his comment with heart-eye emojis.

3 Tracee Is ‘Choicefully Single’

In 2020, while on Oprah’s Vision 2020 tour, Tracee Ellis Ross revealed that she is ‘choicefully single.’ Addressing the crowd in Dallas with Oprah, Ross said, “I, like many of us, was taught to grow up dreaming of my wedding, not of my life. And also, waiting to be chosen. Well, her is the thing, I am the chooser. And, I can choose to get married if I want to, but in the meantime, I am choicefully single…Happily, gloriously single. And I do wish there were more examples.”

2 How She Feels About Having Children

Ross lives by the mantra that her life is hers. Speaking to Oprah, she said that most people come up to her, asking whether she intends to have children, talking about how ‘my children gave me meaning,’ and her response is always, “Are you saying my life is not meaningful?” Like Ross, Oprah also "choicefully" decided to not have children. “Well, you know, I got that until my 50s. So you’ve got a while to go,” the media mogul said.

1 “My Life Is Mine”

Life is a bucketload of choices, and for Ross, that realization came while she was journaling. She’d broken up with someone but was hesitant about asking him whether they should see other people. “And in my journaling, I wrote, ‘My life is mine.’ And it just, I mean, I say it and it takes my breath away because one doesn’t realize, particularly as a woman…these things that are sort of giving us a map that is not necessarily our own, that we can actually make choices for ourselves,” she told Oprah.

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