Trailblazing model Beverly Johnson recently tied the knot. During a new interview with SiruiusXM’s Sway in the Morning to promote her play Beverly Johnson: In Vogue, she revealed that for her 71st birthday, she wed longtime beau Brian Maillian after calling him a boyfriend, fiancé and husband during the chat. What a gift!
“Two days before my birthday, Oct. 13, he kept saying ‘What do you want for your birthday?” she recalled. “I literally sat up in the bed on October 11 and said, ‘I know what I want for my birthday.’ He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I want to get married.’ He went, ‘Okay.’ And I went, ‘Did he say okay? Oh sh-t.’ And we got married.”
The two wed in Las Vegas. Johnson says Maillian wanted to get married all along. He actually proposed on her former OWN series Beverly’s Full House. But she wasn’t ready as she hadn’t known him too long.
“I said, ‘I don’t know you that well.’ And then this was like 12 years in. He’s like, I want bout 1500 people and I said, I’m not having no 1500 people, giving my money away. I’d rather do something in the house because you know we have a home together and we were basically married. “It was just the right moment,” she said. “And I’m thinking the whole time, ‘Oh, we’re gonna get into a fight.'”
The two married at a chapel with help from her best friends. “It was really interesting, but I did [it.]” When asked about “the ring,” Johnson said “oh no,” noting that she prefers property. I want a piece of property. I don’t want a ring,” she said. I’ve got a lot of rings.
This is Johnson’s third marriage. In both marriages, she was very young, in her early 20s. So what’s it like to say “I do” in your 70s? When asked what marriage means to her at this stage of her life, after having a historic career, having a child and grandchildren and getting to her golden years, she said the love is deeper.
It’s so profound because it’s on a totally different level and it’s most certainly on the spiritual level, as we get closer to our God, whoever that may be,” she said. “Each day and moment becomes so precious and those moments with your grandchildren, everything becomes like awe.”
She was previously married to real estate agent Billy Potter from 1971 to 1974, and music producer Danny Sims, whom she shares daughter Anansa with. They were married from 1977 to 1979.