21 photos of Spike and Tonya Lewis Lee’s love through the years

Another day, another timeless Black love story to tell.

October 2 is a special day in the life of the iconic film couple Spike and Tonya Lewis Lee. The director and screenwriter met the lawyer and future film producer in 1992 at the screening of the trailer of his film Malcolm X

“So I had a date that night,” he said on the show The Wonders of Kelly Corrigan podcast in May 2024. “So I go to the toilet and I see this woman approach me – and I know it may sound cliché, but it’s true – time has stopped. I said, “Shit!”

After the session, he and his partner were coming down the escalator when he noticed Tonya heading in the opposite direction.

“So I’m going down the escalator; I have to think quickly. So tell the person I’m with, “I think I left my Montblanc pen upstairs,” you know, something like that. So I turn around, go back to the escalator, find her and ask for, you know, her number,” he said.

A year later, on October 2, 1993, the couple married and eventually welcomed two children, Satchel and Jackson, who also work in the film industry.

“My beautiful wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, deserves recognition for the wonderful, young and talented artists our children have become,” he told BET.com. “My son Jackson and my daughter Satchel and who they have become are just by listening to the dialogue at the table.”

Thirty-one years later, they’re still going strong, they’re still making great movies, and they’re still a beloved black couple.

“I think marriage has taught me more about myself than anything else. What I can handle, what I can’t handle, and what’s important to me,” Tonya told Black Love in 2020 when asked what kept their relationship strong. “I believe in marriage; two people need to focus on what is most important to them and have the space to go out into the world and work towards achieving it. Then you can go home and support each other. It is a mutual understanding that each person has a lot to contribute to themselves, the marriage and the world.”

This mutual understanding allowed them to be a strong couple and one of our absolute favorites. Browse through photos of the couple from 30 years of their marriage.