Jeannie Mai’s relationship has completely changed since saying “I do!” ET’s Deidre Behar spoke to the 42-year-old TV personality less than three months after she and Jeezy tied the knot, and she revealed how their relationship has changed since their wedding day.
“Oh my god. Married life feels 1,000 percent different than when we were dating, in the greatest way,” she said. “I loved our dating life because we really spent such concentrated quality time getting to know each other and making sure that we were right for each other. And now being married, it’s even more handled with such delicacy and such thoughtfulness, because we’re in our 40s and we both grew up in households that weren’t healthy marriages. We have never seen what that looks like.”
Though they weren’t raised with examples of healthy marriages around them, Jeannie said that “in our intuition, we all know what we want.”
“We want to feel trusted. We want to feel loved. We want to feel safe. We want to feel cuddles. We want to feel the romance. We want to feel dating, want to be hot and heavy with sex. Like, you want all those things,” she said. “Human beings want those same things. Why can’t you communicate exactly what that should look like in order to customize the relationship you have and work towards it?”
“The fact that I’m doing that with a partner that is like-minded with me is the best part of my life,” she added, before sharing how she and Jeezy make it a point to keep dating each other, even after getting married.
“[Today] he looked at me before he took off again to another long day of work and he said, ‘Tomorrow, don’t book anything. I’ve got you.’ And I’m like, ‘Ooh,'” she said. “Immediately, I’m already thinking about what am I going to wear… I’m already planning it, as I’m here sitting in work with you.”
“Something like that from your spouse immediately sets something for you to look forward to because [it shows] the intention to date me, even though we live in the same home and we’re going to bed in the same room,” she continued. “And then it eggs me on to think, ‘Ooh, I can’t wait for my next date with him. I can’t wait to whisk him off his feet and surprise him.'”
Jeannie explained that she and Jeezy work to maintain that “zeal to continuously surprise each other and make each other look forward to things” by sending “each other love notes and messages and voice texts.”
“I think you’ve got to keep that consistent in order to keep it strong,” she noted.
In her professional life, Jeannie recently wrapped filming the latest season of The Real, which she co-hosts with Loni Love, Adrienne Houghton and Garcelle Beauvais, the latter of whom she hasn’t met in person due the show’s virtual setup amid COVID-19.
“The cool thing about The Real is that it’s an open table. We welcome anybody who really has a voice and something important to share, especially if we can learn from it and be influenced by it,” she said. “We barely just got Garcelle and I haven’t even seen her in person. I haven’t seen any of the girls for almost two years now.”
While there’s technically a spot for a fifth host at the table, Jeannie is happy with the group they have.
“I want to get to know Garcelle, my new co-host. I want to spend some time with her, really just get to know her role and her position in our show,” she said. “This last season was kind of too short, so even though the table’s open for anybody to join, I still want to get to know my girl Garcelle.”
Jeannie’s also gearing up for the season premiere of Holey Moley 3D in 2D, which she promised takes things to an “even crazier level” than the previous seasons.
“We have a hole that has explosive huge kernels of popcorn that are literally socking people everywhere on their head, body, legs, toes into a huge pit of corn, which was my personal favorite hole,” the show’s sideline reporter teased. “We also have a hole called Ho Ho Hole that involves a pole. That’s all I’m going to say. “
“The rules have been completely thrown out the window,” she added, before quipping, “Let’s celebrate this because I’m going to be really shocked if we’re allowed to come back.”
