Zawe Ashton has clarified the status of her relationship with longtime partner, Tom Hiddleston.
The Marvels actress and Loki star announced their engagement in early 2022 and welcomed their first child later that year.
And while Zawe - who is pregnant with her second baby - has referred to Tom, 44, as her "husband" in interviews in the past, she has now addressed rumours suggesting they had already tied the knot.
"We've been engaged for a long time and there are, I think, there have been publications that have named us husband and wife already," she shared during a chat for the latest episode of Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver's Miss Me? podcast.
However, Zawe admitted that some people sent "toxic" messages to her when they thought that they had been excluded from a wedding.
"There's some toxic paragraphs that were thrown my way like, 'OK, no invite, whatever.' It's like, 'No, no, no, it didn't happen.' We didn't do it in secret. We haven't eloped. It's just like a semantics thing," the 41-year-old continued.
In addition, Zawe described engagement as a "training ground" of sorts for their marriage.
"It is the practicing (of) calling each other husband and wife. It is looking down at the ring finger and being like, 'OK, this is the tradition that is potentially gonna come with this first yes,'" she explained. "People kind of rush through engagement, and I'm like, 'Engagement is really useful.' Why is everyone like, 'I'm getting engaged to get married?' Be engaged. Work things out. Because that's like a big... that's a big yes that opens up a whole new tapestry of understanding between you, between you and each other's families, because you are saying yes to each other's whole lives... So, I've loved engagement, because you're learning. You're like, 'What is this 'yes' gonna be later?' This is like a notch up from just being partners, boyfriend and girlfriend."
