The Real Life Partners Of The Cast Of Chicago Fire
"Chicago Fire" is red hot right now. The show dishes up non-stop action, and the chemistry between the cast has viewers tuning in week after week to see what develops in the lives of their favorite characters. "Chicago Fire" follows a team of firefighters who work at the fictional Chicago Fire Department's Firehouse 51. The show is actually filmed in a real fire station on Chicago's Near West Side, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The series is part of producer Dick Wolf's "One Chicago" franchise, which also includes "Chicago P.D." and "Chicago Med." "Chicago Fire" was the first show in the franchise and premiered in 2012. Of course, as it is with any long-running television drama, the personal lives of the characters provide as much — and sometimes even more — entertainment as the fire-fighting storylines. The show has had its share of real-life drama and heartbreak, too, such as when Dushon Monique Brown, who played Connie, Chief Boden's assistant, died in 2018 at the age of 49. Some cast members have also left the show over the years, including Monica Raymund, Lauren German, and Charlie Barnett.
The real-life partners of the cast of "Chicago Fire" have had to put up with the crazy schedules of their spouses and partners throughout the show's nine seasons to date. Let's take a look at who those people are in the lives of current cast members David Eigenberg, Jesse Spencer, Taylor Kinney, Joe Minoso, and Kara Killmer.
David Eigenberg met his wife on an Army base
David Eigenberg plays Christopher Hermann on "Chicago Fire," but some viewers may also recognize him from "Sex in the City," on which he played Miranda's husband, Steve. In real life, Eigenberg has been married to Chrysti Kotik since 2002. They met when "Sex in the City" was at its height of popularity — but she wasn't impressed. In fact, Kotik had never seen the show. They met in 2002 while Eigenberg was doing a meet-and-greet on the Army base where she was stationed. "I saw this woman with her little black beret, and she was just amazing," he said to Chicago's Splash in 2013.
Eigenberg got a friend to help him convince her to spend a day with him and, according to him, "we clicked." He proposed three months later. "There was just something about her," he said to the Chicago-based magazine. "Something you can't even really articulate. She's a good person and has got such a great heart." The couple has two kids: son Louis Steven, born in 2009, and daughter Myrna Belle, born in 2014.
Eigenberg and Kotik lived in Los Angeles when they first married and visited Chicago, where Kotik got a taste of the bitter Chicago winter and said, per West Suburban Living, "I'll move anywhere with you for your job, but don't make me move back to Chicago." And then he got the job on "Chicago Fire."
Jesse Spencer's wife is a Ph.D. candidate
Jesse Spencer plays Matthew Casey on "Chicago Fire." But viewers may also recognize him from "House M.D." where he played Dr. Robert Chase from 2004 to 2012. The Australian actor met his now-wife, Kali Woodruff, at a music festival in Chicago in 2014, per the Daily Mail. He proposed while they were spending a week in the Andes mountains in Peru in 2019.
The couple married on June 27, 2020, in the bride's hometown of Neptune Beach, Florida. The date was chosen to commemorate her grandparents' wedding anniversary, per Australia's Daily Telegraph. "Despite a spike in COVID, a venue change, a Saharan dust plume, not to mention a torrential thunderstorm, we made it across the line on our wedding day, and I'm a very lucky man," Spencer said to the Daily Telegraph (via Hello!). He went on to praise his wife, saying, "What a silver lining to 2020. She's smart, pretty, and way ahead of her years. We're very happy. She is my port in every storm, and we're already excited to be moving on to the next phase of our lives."
Spencer wasn't exaggerating about his wife being smart, either! According to her Twitter bio, Woodruff is a Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University, studying "auditory neuroscience and psychoacoustics." Spencer's filming in Chicago works out nicely for this couple!
Taylor Kinney was engaged to Lady Gaga
Taylor Kinney plays Kelly Severide on "Chicago Fire." He also played Mason Lockwood on "The Vampire Diaries." As for his personal life, he's best known for having been engaged to Lady Gaga. The actor and the superstar met in July 2011 in Nebraska on the shoot for her music video "Yoü and I." They fell hard for each other when he spontaneously kissed her during the video shoot, per Hollywood.com. They got engaged on Valentine's Day 2015, but broke up in July 2016, per People.
In October 2016, Gaga revealed on Howard Stern's Sirius XM show that she still cared for him. "I'm actually very close to Taylor," Gaga said to Stern at the time (via UPI). "He's been my lover and my friend for a really long time. He's been so supportive of the [new] album ['Joanne'] and I support him on his show, 'Chicago Fire.'"
That same month, Kinney reportedly dated a radiologist from Philadelphia named Alanna, per Page Six. In 2019, he was seen kissing an unidentified woman in Philadelphia, per the Daily Mail.
Joe Minoso met his wife on the set of "Chicago Fire"
Joe Minoso plays Joe Cruz on "Chicago Fire." He actually met his wife, Caitlin Murphy Miles, on the set of the popular show. She's one of the makeup artists on "Chicago Fire," per IMDb. Miles has also worked on "The Real Housewives of New York City" as a personal makeup artist.
Minoso and Miles married on October 16, 2016, in a Chicago-themed wedding in, you guessed it, Chicago. On a 2016 appearance on "Steve Harvey," he said (via the Chicago Tribune), "We wanted to give a little shoutout to Chicago, so we wanted to do like a 1920s kind of speakeasy thing. And so when people walked in, they had to give, like, a password that we gave everybody. And it was all, like, really darkly lit." Minoso continued to describe the theme of his wedding, saying, "All of the tables were named after speakeasies in Chicago from back in the day. So yeah, we did it up. And of course, how can you not take a picture in front of a firehouse door? You know, with 'Chicago Fire' and all."
"Chicago Fire" actor Yuriy Sardarov posted to his Instagram from Minoso's wedding, writing "It's a Chicago Fire wedding day." Fellow cast member Marina Squerciati also posted to Instagram, writing, "When friends marry friends." The "Chicago Fire" family is definitely on board with this picture-perfect love story!
Kara Killmer met Andrew Cheney on the set of "Beyond the Mask"
Kara Killmer plays Sylvie Brett on "Chicago Fire." She met her husband, actor Andrew Cheney, on the set of the 2015 movie "Beyond the Mask." They married on May 14, 2016, in Killmer's home state of Texas; in fact, their wedding website is still live for curious fans.
Meeting was fate for Killmer and Cheney, as she almost wasn't cast in the film. Casting had been underway for the role of Charlotte Holloway for a while by the time a friend told her about the film. She had worked with the casting director before, so she called and asked if she could audition. In an interview with Showbiz Monkeys, she said, "I was probably the last girl on the last day of callbacks, and when I read the script, it was such a page-turner and different. I really liked that it was a period piece and the complete package of action and romance. I was really happy that they chose to meet with me."
Cheney also came to the project late in the process. Killmer had already done screen tests with other actors by the time Cheney signed onto the project, the couple shared in an interview with Faith Radio. Cheney explained that someone had "passed [his] name along" to director Chad Burns after seeing his movie "Seasons of Gray," and he and Burns formed a fast connection. Whoever made the movie referral definitely deserved a shoutout at the couple's wedding!