Ever since plus size model Ashley Graham and filmmaker Justin Ervin met at a New York City church in 2009, the pair started dating and have been inseparable.
“All I wanted to do was keep talking to Justin,” writes Graham in her 2017 memoir A New Model: What Confidence, Beauty, and Power Really Look Like.
“The consistency and openness was so new it felt weird. My romance with Justin was innocent and sweet. We went rollerblading and biking; we did karaoke, went to the movies, took an improv class together.”
So who is Justin Ervin?
1. He’s a documentary filmmaker.
According to his website, his first documentary, Elephant in the Room won official selection at San Diego Black Film Festival, Vail Film Festival and Garden State Film Festival, where it won Best Documentary Short in April of 2013.
His second doco, Six Months Later, won the audience award at the New Filmmakers L.A. event.
2. He’s also a cameraman.
He’s a videographer and trained cinemotographer and in 2013 started his own production company, Element Films, and has made videos and campaigns for clients including Vogue, Guess, CNN, The Gap, and Netflix.
3. He abstained from sex before their wedding
Due to his strong religious beliefs, Ervin and Graham did not sleep together until they were married.
“Something that it did for us was build up our friendship, and it also built up our trust and communication,” Graham told Elle magazine. “Of course we were sexually attracted to each other; we would make out heavily. All those things were there. I wasn’t worried about, ‘What’s sex gonna be like with him?’ It was more, ‘Do I trust him? Is he someone I want to be with for the rest of my life?’”
4. His proposal involved a ruse
Ervin told Graham they were going to record an interview for the “Justin and Ashley Show” (a series of video diaries the couple had been making). As they sat down to start recording, Ervin pulled out a ring and proposed.
Graham and Ervin married in August 2010, and don’t have any kids (yet).
5. He had to win over Graham’s grandmother
When they were just dating and before Ervin met Graham’s grandparents, they were unaware he was African-American.
“When my grandparents met Justin, my grandmother was cordial but cold,” Graham wrote in A New Model. “She greeted him and immediately walked away. When it came time for them to leave, my grandparents didn’t even acknowledge him. I had never seen my loving, hardworking and wonderful grandma be so hurtful and so racist. I was in shock.”
Ervin didn’t make a fuss about the interaction and won Graham’s grandmother over by calling her to wish her a happy sixtieth wedding anniversary.
6. He’s not into texting
“He’s a pick-up-the-phone-and-call-you person,” said Graham.
7. He has a cute way of making up after a fight.
Ervin likes to play what he calls the “Nice Game” after a fight with his wife. “I tell her to say something nice,” he told People.com. “It helps put the argument in the past.”
8. He lives in Los Angeles, away from his wife
Though Graham is based in New York, Erwin lives in L.A., where he works. They don’t go a maximum of two weeks without seeing each other. “We just meet in L.A. or New York,” Graham told Entertainment Tonight. “We meet in Paris, Miami. It’s pretty sexy.”
9. He’s a fitness fanatic
He loves to work out, and often does sessions with Graham.
10. He and Graham have a secret to keeping things fresh.
“Just have sex,” she told Elle. “Have sex all the time. Even if you don’t feel like it, just have sex. I have found that if we haven’t had sex, we get snippy, and then if we are having sex, we’re all over each other. For us it’s like, ‘Oh, let’s have sex.’ And then we’re just right back in a great mood.”