Before Christine Marinoni, before the wedding on a New York rooftop and the run for governor, there were fifteen years with Danny Mozes. For a decade and a half, Cynthia Nixon’s life partner was not a fellow celebrity or a public figure at all, but a photographer and teacher she had known since high school, but there is much more to his story than being somebody’s ex.
Danny Mozes met Nixon at New York’s prestigious Hunter College High School, and the two began dating in 1988. They stayed together until 2003, had two children, and never married, a detail that has been mangled by countless websites that wrongly call him her “ex-husband.” Through it all, Mozes stayed almost entirely out of the spotlight.
This article sets the record straight on Danny Mozes: who he really is, what his fifteen years with Cynthia Nixon were like, the truth about their split, and the quiet life he has chosen ever since.
| Full Name | Danny Mozes (Daniel Mozes) |
|---|---|
| Known For | Former long-term partner of actress Cynthia Nixon; father of two |
| Birth Year | Has never been made public |
| Birthplace | Has never been made public |
| Nationality | American |
| Profession | Photographer and teacher (taught at Hunter College) |
| Parents | Have never been made public |
| Spouse | Never married |
| Children | Samuel Joseph Mozes and Charles Ezekiel Mozes |
| Relationship | With Cynthia Nixon, 1988–2003 |
| Current Status | Lives privately; not active on social media |
Who Is Danny Mozes?
Danny Mozes is a New York photographer and teacher best known as Cynthia Nixon’s partner of fifteen years. He is the father of her two eldest children, and the man she was with through the rise of Sex and the City, the show that made Nixon a household name as lawyer Miranda Hobbes.
Unlike almost everyone else in Nixon’s orbit, Mozes has never sought fame. He keeps his personal life extremely private, is not active on social media, and has given virtually no interviews. As of 2012, he was reported to be teaching at Hunter College, the same school where he and Nixon first met, a detail that says a lot about the kind of life he chose.
He is also one of the most misreported figures in celebrity journalism: many websites call him Nixon’s “ex-husband,” but the two were never married. That error says more about the internet’s habits than about him.
High School Sweethearts in Manhattan
Danny Mozes and Cynthia Nixon met at Hunter College High School, the elite public school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Nixon, born in 1966, graduated in the class of 1984 and went on to Barnard College, graduating in 1988. Somewhere along the way, she and Mozes, her high school sweetheart, began dating, and by 1988 they were a couple.
It was a relationship built far from Hollywood. Nixon was already an accomplished child and stage actor, she had made her TV debut at nine and was building a serious theater career, but her private life stayed rooted in New York. Mozes, meanwhile, pursued photography and teaching, a world away from red carpets.
They would stay together for the next fifteen years, through Nixon’s transformation from respected stage actress to global television star.
Fifteen Years, Two Kids, No Wedding
One of the most distinctive things about Nixon and Mozes is what they never did: marry. Despite fifteen years together and two children, the couple never tied the knot, and by all accounts, neither of them wanted to.
Nixon has explained her thinking directly. She said she had “always been wary of marriage,” feeling it could become “a potential trap because some people want the party and the gifts and the public celebration, rather than the commitment.” Mozes reportedly felt the same way. It was only later, with Christine Marinoni, who was more in favor of formalizing a relationship, that Nixon changed her mind and married, in 2012, after New York passed the Marriage Equality Act.
Their two children arrived during the relationship’s long middle chapter. Samuel Joseph Mozes was born in 1996. In 2018, Nixon proudly shared that Samuel, who goes by Seph, is transgender, posting a photo from his graduation at the University of Chicago on Trans Day of Action. Their younger son, Charles Ezekiel Mozes, was born in 2002, while Nixon was filming the fourth season of Sex and the City. Her real pregnancy was written around on the show, though the baby playing Miranda’s son Brady was portrayed by a child actor, Joseph Pupo.
The Amicable Split of 2003
In 2003, after fifteen years together, Nixon and Mozes ended their relationship. The split came just before Nixon met Christine Marinoni: the two women met in 2001 while campaigning for public school reform, became close friends, and began dating in 2004, a year after the breakup.
What ended the relationship remains private, and the couple’s representatives were clear about what did not end it. At the time, one of Nixon’s representatives issued a statement saying, “Cynthia and Danny were both growing apart; it was discussions they were having. There was no third party involved. It was amicable. They are both committed and focused on the children.”
That tone, quiet, respectful, and child-focused, has defined everything about Mozes ever since. There were no tell-all interviews, no public disputes, no custody drama played out in the press.
A Photographer and Teacher, Not a Celebrity
What does Danny Mozes actually do? He is a photographer and a teacher. As of 2012, he was reported to be teaching at Hunter College, where he and Nixon had once been classmates. The image of him at the 2002 Golden Globe Awards, camera hanging around his neck even on the red carpet, tells you plenty: this is a man whose identity is behind the lens, not in front of it.
He is not active on social media and has kept his personal life out of the press to a degree that is genuinely rare for someone connected to a star of Nixon’s magnitude. Even basic biographical details, his birth year, his family background, have never been made public, and he has clearly preferred it that way.
You can read more celebrity relationship profiles like Constantine Yankoglu‘s in our Celebrity section.
The “Ex-Husband” Myth
Search Danny Mozes online and you will find plenty of articles calling him Cynthia Nixon’s “ex-husband” and describing a “quiet divorce.” It is one of the clearest examples of how misinformation spreads in celebrity coverage: confident, detailed, and completely wrong.
Nixon and Mozes never married. Her marriage to Christine Marinoni in 2012 was her first. Reliable outlets, including Parade, have stated this plainly: the couple was together for fifteen years, had two children, and never wed. The “divorce” stories appear to be inventions, built on the assumption that a fifteen-year relationship with children must have involved a marriage.
It matters because the truth is more interesting than the fiction. Their choice not to marry was deliberate and philosophical, not a technicality, and it says something real about both of them.
Co-Parenting and Family Today
By every available account, Nixon and Mozes remained on good terms after the split and shared parenting duties when the children were younger. The blended family that followed seems to have worked: in 2008, Nixon told ABC News that her sons had taken kindly to Marinoni, saying, “They love her. They call her Mom. They call me Mommy. My son is very funny… He just says Mom and whoever answers is fine.”
In 2011, Marinoni gave birth to Nixon’s third child, Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni, completing a modern family that Nixon has described with pride. Speaking to The New York Times in 2012, she said of her children, “I know everybody says their kids are their greatest achievement, and I think my kids are wildly impressive and great, but I don’t feel like they’re my achievement, really. They’re their own people.”
Mozes, for his part, has stayed out of all of it publicly, which may be the greatest gift a private person can give a public family: the space to live their lives while he quietly lives his.
Bottom Line
Danny Mozes spent fifteen years beside one of television’s most famous actresses and walked away from the relationship with his privacy intact, which might be the hardest trick in Hollywood. He was never an ex-husband, never a celebrity, and never interested in becoming one.
What he was, by every account that matters, is a devoted father who helped raise two children through fame, change, and reinvention, and then stepped back into the life he always wanted. In an industry built on exposure, Danny Mozes chose the opposite, and that choice deserves more respect than the myths written about him.
Who is Danny Mozes?
Danny Mozes is a New York photographer and teacher who was Cynthia Nixon’s partner for fifteen years, from 1988 to 2003. He is the father of her two eldest children.
Were Danny Mozes and Cynthia Nixon married?
No. Despite many websites calling him her “ex-husband,” Danny Mozes and Cynthia Nixon never married. Nixon’s 2012 marriage to Christine Marinoni was her first.
How long were Danny Mozes and Cynthia Nixon together?
They were together for fifteen years. They met at Hunter College High School, began dating in 1988, and split amicably in 2003.
Does Danny Mozes have children?
Yes, two sons with Cynthia Nixon: Samuel Joseph Mozes, born in 1996, and Charles Ezekiel Mozes, born in 2002.
What does Danny Mozes do for a living?
He is a photographer and teacher. As of 2012, he was reported to be teaching at Hunter College in New York, where he and Nixon were once classmates.
Where is Danny Mozes now?
He keeps an extremely private life, is not active on social media, and stays out of the press. Details of his current life have never been made public.
