How Did Mark Burnett and Roma Downey Meet?
Celebrity couple Roma Downey and Mark Burnett have been together since 2004.
Burnett is known best as the executive producer of the wildly popular Survivor and The Voice, while Downey is recognized for her starring role in Touched By An Angel.
Together, the television power couple have kept their marriage strong in every project they undertake, from the moment they met.
The romantic way they met
Burnett and Downey are known for their utter commitment and dedication to one another. They support each other’s work and interests completely. How they met truly could have been taken out of just about any Hallmark Channel movie.
Downey explained to Access Hollywood Live in 2012 that the two met when their eyes met across a crowded. . . salon.
“He was having a haircut, and I was having a pedicure,” Downey said. “Our eyes met in the mirror, you know, once, twice — And then I thought, ‘I can’t look over again,’ and I did.”
They each must have very much liked what they saw because they began dating in 2004, were engaged in 2006, and married a year after that at their home in Malibu.
At the time of their wedding, Burnett told People, “It was wonderful to have shared our big day with our family – Roma, myself, our children and our parents. It was so meaningful and so intimate.”
Downey’s show co-star Della Reese’s double duty at her wedding – and Reese’s vow to Mark Burnett
Roma Downey’s Touched By An Angel co-star, the late Della Reese, was an ordained minister and officiated their wedding service.
In addition, Reese, who in many ways was a surrogate mother of sorts for Downey, stood in along with her husband, Franklin, for Downey’s parents, who were no longer alive.
The Irish actress spoke on The Real in 2018 after Reese’s death about the role she had played in Downey’s life, plus the fierce warning Reese had for Mark Burnett.
“She was just an amazing, amazing woman. She really was my mother. God brought us together, of that I am certain. And the relationship on the screen that we had together was reflected very much in our relationship offscreen.”
“And when she would get called to the set, they would have to give her a fifteen-minute warning, because she would hug everybody. It didn’t matter if you were the janitor, or if you were the star, or the director. She would stop and she saw God in everybody, and she put her arms around them, and she held them close.”
Downey then talked about the stern words that Reese had for Burnett.
“When [Della Reese] first met my husband,” the actress recalled, “she took him in her arms, and I just thought they were hugging. She was whispering in his ear. She said to him, ‘That’s my baby girl, and if you hurt her, I will have you killed.’ “
Do they have children?
The couple has three children.
Burnett has two sons, James, 26 and Cameron, 23, from a previous marriage and Downey, from a previous marriage, has one daughter, Reilly Marie, who is also 23.
