Star who came out in the ’90s is now a heartthrob at 56 — and his husband is the man he met at Walgreens

He only went to Walgreens that night for something completely ordinary.

Instead, he walked out having locked eyes with a stranger who would eventually become the love of his life.

Hollywood has no shortage of love stories. Some are beautiful, some end in heartbreak, and plenty become messy once fame and fortune enter the picture.

But this is a different kind of Hollywood love story.

There were no red carpets, no grand romantic gestures and no famous names involved — at least not yet. Just two strangers, one Sunday night in California, and a chance encounter neither of them could have predicted.

Long before his name became familiar to millions, the man at the center of this story was simply a young boy growing up in Philadelphia.

Struggled with his speech

He was born and raised as the third of four children in a working-class family. His mother, Edith, was a homemaker who also worked at a bank, while his stepfather, Clarence, made a living sanding floors. His biological father left the family when he was just nine years old.

Despite that, he remembered his childhood as a loving and supportive one. In a 2021 interview with The Advocate, he described growing up in a close-knit neighborhood where people looked out for one another.

“I couldn’t have done all the things I’ve done in my life without all that love and support I had when I was growing up,” he said.

Still, growing up wasn’t always easy.

He struggled with a speech impediment and remembered himself as awkward, gangly and sensitive. His stepfather even tried to toughen him up by encouraging him to box.

But fighting simply wasn’t his thing.

“I wasn’t about getting into fights,” he said. “I thought more about love and didn’t understand why people hated each other.”

That sensitivity would remain an important part of who he was.

After graduating from high school in 1987, he attended Temple University, where he studied journalism. But acting soon began pulling him in another direction.

He eventually moved to San Francisco and started working in theater, slowly building a career one role at a time.

The years before fame

His first on-screen credit came in the mid-1990s, followed by smaller television and film roles. For years, he was primarily a character actor, often appearing in supporting parts while waiting for his big break.

Behind the scenes, he was working constantly just to stay afloat.

“I was auditioning literally eight times a week,” he later revealed to The New Yorker.

“I was exhausted, and I was bartending. Things weren’t working well. The auditions I got, I just felt like they were not leaning toward my talent.”

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He kept going anyway.

And then, in 2005, something happened that had nothing to do with an audition.

It happened at Walgreens.

One look changed everything

It was a Sunday night in Berkeley, California.

He had stopped at Walgreens to pick up a facial mask when he noticed a man nearby with striking hair and a lip piercing.

Then their eyes met.

For a moment, that was all it was.

The man was talking to a young woman who appeared upset, and eventually the two walked away. But before disappearing, the stranger looked back.

The actor waved.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the encounter.

He even checked his watch. It was 8:03 p.m.

Maybe, he thought, he would come back the following Sunday and see him again.

“I’m that kind of hopeless romantic,” he later admitted.

But he wouldn’t have to wait a week.

Looking through Craigslist

Three days later, while looking through Craigslist, he happened to check the site’s “Missed Connections” section.

And there it was.

A post from a man who said he had seen him outside Walgreens in Berkeley.

It had been posted only two hours earlier.

The description even mentioned his faux hawk.

There was no doubt.

He had found the stranger.

They arranged to meet, and what began with a glance outside a drugstore quickly turned into something neither man had expected.

After their first date, they ended up spending the night together. He initially insisted they could just cuddle, but sometime around 4 a.m., while the other man was asleep, he quietly admitted what was already growing inside him.

“I think I love you and you’re about to change my life.”

He was right.

The mysterious man from outside Walgreens was named Raúl.

And he would eventually become his husband.

Then came the name everyone knows

The actor behind this unlikely love story was Colman Domingo.

By then, the man who had once been struggling through auditions and bartending shifts was slowly becoming one of Hollywood’s most respected performers.

But long before the awards, major movie roles and worldwide recognition, Domingo had already experienced something just as important: being accepted for exactly who he was.

On his 21st birthday, he came out to his older brother, Rick.

Rick was, in Domingo’s words, the epitome of masculinity. But instead of reacting negatively, he hugged his younger brother, told him he still loved him and promised not to tell anyone.

His family eventually learned the truth, too, and their reaction meant everything.

When his mother visited him in San Francisco, she wanted to understand this part of his life rather than simply accept it from a distance. She even walked around the Castro with him and went into a gay bar.

“She just wanted to make sure I was the same guy,” Domingo recalled.

For him, that kind of acceptance became part of the foundation on which he built his life.

And it was something he carried into his relationship with Raúl.

After more than two decades together, Domingo has said their relationship is deeper than ever. He has credited his husband with helping him become a fuller version of himself, while emphasizing that lasting love isn’t about staying exactly the same.

“You’re along for each other’s ride through life, and you have to be unafraid of changing directions,” he said.