Who Is Kumail Nanjiani's Wife? All About Screenwriter Emily V. Gordon
- - Who Is Kumail Nanjiani's Wife? All About Screenwriter Emily V. Gordon
Francesca GarianoDecember 19, 2025 at 11:00 PM
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Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon married in 2007, a year after meeting at a comedy show
The actor and screenwriter's early experiences in their relationship, including a health complication, inspired their 2017 Oscar-nominated movie The Big Sick
Nanjiani and Gordon are still collaborating on different projects, like producing
Kumail Nanjiani and his wife, Emily V. Gordon, are no strangers to collaborating throughout their nearly two-decade-long marriage.
Nanjiani returns to stand-up on Dec. 19 with his Hulu special Kumail Nanjiani: Night Thoughts, bringing him back to his comedy roots when he met Gordon, who lightly heckled him at one of his shows in 2006. The couple wed the following year after she recovered from a sudden, rare illness that left her in a medically induced coma.
The actor told PEOPLE that he started to think more seriously about his future with Gordon while she was in the hospital. Nanjiani explained, “It was honestly right when she went under. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, I love this woman, and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. If she comes out of this, I’m going to marry her.’ ”
Nearly two decades later, the pair are still married and have a long history of working together on projects, including their 2017 film The Big Sick, which was loosely based on their real-life relationship and Gordon’s illness.
The actor reflected on his relationship with Gordon during a January 2018 MAKERS interview, sharing at the time, “What matters is the real connection. With Emily, I got the real connection.”
So, who is Kumail Nanjiani’s wife? Here’s everything to know about Emily V. Gordon and her partnership with the comedic actor.
They met at Nanjiani’s comedy show in 2006
Kumail Nanjiani Instagram
Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon
Nanjiani and Gordon first crossed paths in 2006 in Chicago at one of the comedian’s stand-up shows.
The couple shared more about their meet-cute in a joint essay for Glamour in June 2017.
Gordon recalled, “Onstage, he asked a question of the audience, and I woo-hoo’d because no one else was responding ... OK, yes, that question was ‘Is anyone else here from Pakistan?’ and I’m from North Carolina, but still ... I was helping!”
While they soon began dating, Nanjiani revealed that after he had initially asked her out, she said no and later suggested a “platonic dinner” instead.
Gordon clarified, “To be fair, I initially said no because I was trying not to date anyone, but something about Kumail made me miss him even though I barely knew him.”
She was in a medically induced coma after being diagnosed with Still's disease
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Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani attend the premiere of 'Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery' on November 14, 2022 in Los Angeles, California
Early on in their relationship, Gordon fell ill. In her essay for Glamour, she recalled being “sick with [flu-like] symptoms for a while,” but the diagnoses and medications she received didn’t work.
Eventually, Gordon was taken to the hospital after she was unable to catch her breath, noting that the last thing she remembered clearly was calling Nanjiani to share the news. From there, she was put into a medically induced coma.
After being in the hospital for a month, she was diagnosed with adult-onset Still’s disease, resulting in a lung surgery. Per the Cleveland Clinic, adult-onset Still’s disease is a rare type of inflammatory arthritis developed in adulthood that can cause symptoms including fever, muscle pain and a rash.
Ten years after her diagnosis, Gordon discovered she had common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) in 2017, an immune system disorder that can cause low levels of the proteins in the body that fight infections, per the Mayo Clinic.
During a September 2022 interview with PEOPLE, Gordon reflected on how her disorder impacted her experience and health during the pandemic, as well as her life overall.
"I've been in a situation for years, where I have had to be careful,” she said. “I've had to worry about getting sick from having dinner with friends or from being out in the open. For immunocompromised people, we have had to oftentimes live in fear. I'm not interested in living in fear."
They have been married since 2007
Kumail Nanjiani Instagram
Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon on their wedding day
After Gordon got out of the hospital, she and Nanjiani wed within months. Gordon wrote in Glamour that they tied the knot in July 2007 at City Hall in Chicago and then had a traditional Muslim ceremony with families a few weeks later.
She added, “The ceremonies were intimate and romantic but also felt like a public declaration of what we already knew: We were in it for the long haul.”
However, during a January 2024 appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show, Nanjiani revealed that he actually proposed to Gordon after they were already married. In the time following their City Hall wedding, Nanjiani said that Gordon shared that she wished she had “gotten proposed to properly.”
“A few years later, we were in Montauk. We’d gotten like a really small hotel room on the beach, and at midnight we were playing video games,” he explained. “I was like, ‘Hey, come outside with me on the beach.’ ”
There, he proposed to his wife, telling host Jennifer Hudson that the best way to have a surprise proposal is to “do it three years after you’re married.”
She was a therapist before pursuing a creative career
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When Nanjiani and Gordon met, she was a counselor. Gordon earned her bachelor's in psychology before she went on to receive an MS/EdS in couples and family counseling from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, per the college’s UNCG Magazine.
She practiced as a therapist in North Carolina, Illinois and New York before adding on creative endeavors to her plate. Gordon told GQ in March 2020 that she had been a therapist for eight years.
Nanjiani vouched for his wife’s empathetic nature, telling GQ, “And I will say, Emily was a therapist, but that wasn't just a profession. Emily is that personality type.”
“You are the person who randomly, at a party, [would] meet someone who we don't know and they'll just start talking about their cat that just died,” he added. “But Emily is just that type of person, where people really want to share things with her."
They collaborated on the 2017 rom-com The Big Sick based on their relationship
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Kumail Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan in 'The Big Sick'.
Nanjiani and Gordon are no strangers to teaming up professionally. The pair are likely best known for the 2017 romantic comedy and drama, The Big Sick, which earned them an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
The Big Sick, though fictionalized, is based on the couple’s real-life love story, including their meet-cute, Gordon’s illness and hospitalization, and navigating the aftermath of her adult-onset Still's disease diagnosis, ending with their marriage.
Gordon spoke to Deadline in November 2017 about writing a movie with references to her personal experiences, including her relationship with Nanjiani and her health struggles.
At the time, she explained, “The writing was definitely a process. Luckily, we wrote for such a long time that I had a while to get comfortable with the idea.”
"I think eventually, I went from being frightened about it to hoping, in some way, that it could be something that could resonate with a lot of people," Gordon added.
She is a writer and film producer
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Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani attend the premiere of 'Predator: Badlands' on November 3, 2025 in Los Angeles, California
In September 2015, Gordon published her book Super You: Release Your Inner Superhero, which served as a guide for readers to become empowered and the hero in their own lives.
“I wanted to take everything I’d gotten from my experience as a therapist and write it in a way I wouldn’t have rolled my eyes at,” she told UNCG Magazine, mentioning her experience as a freelance writer.
In addition to co-writing The Big Sick with Nanjiani, she’s written for several series, including The Carmichael Show, Another Period and Crashing, plus sold a pilot to FX, per Vulture.
She told the outlet in June 2017, “Writing for TV has been great because every show that I’ve written for is with comedians that I’ve been friends with, who I also love working with.”
In September 2024, Deadline reported that Nanjiani and Gordon launched their production company, Winter Coat Films, with producer Dani Melia as president of the company. Together, the couple served as executive producers of Welcome to Chippendales and Little America, which they also wrote.
However, they have had to set boundaries. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in November 2022, Gordon explained that they essentially have “office hours” between Monday and Friday and then shut it down over the weekend.
“If we’re hanging out, and one of us gets an idea about work, we have to ask permission to bring it up,” Nanjiani added. “Sometimes the other person says, ‘No!’ ”
She and Nanjiani hosted two podcasts together
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While Nanjiani and Gordon have collaborated on projects behind the scenes, they’ve also worked together on more public endeavors.
They initially hosted the podcast The Indoor Kids, which centered around video games. The audio show ran for over 200 episodes from July 2011 to October 2015. Years later, they launched the podcast Staying In with Emily and Kumail during the beginning of the pandemic, from March 2020 to June 2020.
Speaking to PEOPLE in May 2020, Nanjiani said that his relationship with Gordon was strengthened, thanks in part to the podcast. "Even though we're married, and we have a really good relationship, we don't get like, 'All right, now for an hour and a half let's really talk about how we're feeling,' " he said.
"We don't have that structured time to really check in with each other without any distractions, where all you have to do is listen, respond, and really have a conversation,” he added.” It's so easy to kind of not do that. So that's been really good for our relationship, and I'm really finding out stuff about her that I didn't know before, [like] what her coping strategies are. I think I'm better now at knowing."
She’s teased her husband about his body transformation for Marvel’s Eternals
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Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani attend the Warner Bros. premiere of 'The Suicide Squad' on August 2, 2021
Nanjiani received a lot of attention in 2019 for his new look for Marvel’s Eternals, debuting his ripped body in a pair of “thirsty shirtless” pictures. Gordon poked fun at Nanjiani's announcement in an Instagram post of her own in December 2019, sharing a photo of her husband shirtless while he played video games on the couch.
“He’s super buff but he’s also still super this guy: a horrifically focused gamer and the best cat lap,” she wrote. “And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, please go to the Instagram of @kumailn.”
During a January 2020 interview with The Guardian, Gordon also joked about the transformation, briefly pretending that she hadn’t even noticed.
“What’re you talking about? I haven’t noticed any difference,” she said. “No, I’m kidding, the difference is that it’s hard for him to type on the individual keys of his computer now because of his massive, muscular hands.”
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
