Conan O'Brien's longtime sidekick Andy Richter has opened up about finding love after going through a painful divorce from his wife of 25 years. And because celebrities are just like the rest of us in many ways, the 57-year-old found his second wife on a dating app rather than anywhere else.
Richter appears in the final episode of Jesse Tyler Ferguson Dinner is on Me podcast, where Modern Family The famous star asked where he met his wife Jennifer Herrera, whom he married in a ceremony officiated by O'Brien last June.
“We met on Hinge. We met online. It was my first real experience doing that, you know,” Richter explained, noting that splitting with his ex-wife was the worst thing he'd ever been through in his life. “We were together for 27 years and married for 25. I mean, it was just, it was horrible. And moving out of my house with my kids was definitely the worst thing.”
The comedian said he asked his younger sister, who is divorced, for advice and she told him it might take a while for him to feel settled enough to start a serious relationship with anyone. “I was like, 'What? I don't have time for this!'” he recalled thinking.
“But he was right. It took a while,” she continued. “Well, it was exciting in some ways because it was like the idea of something new. But yeah, I mean, it was nerve-wracking. It was a little scary. And you know, you feel like an old shoe.”
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When asked if Hinge was the first dating app he'd tried, Richter admitted that he briefly tried the “famous” dating app Raya after a recommendation from his friend, comedian Nikki Glaser.
“He said, 'I'll recommend you.' And I said, 'Okay.' And I signed up, and I wasn't in a position to review myself and write cute little things about myself, because I felt like an old shoe, you know, like trash,” she recalled. “What kind of music do I like? Trash music. And you had to pick a piece of music, and everything I wore was too old for that. It was like I couldn't find anything. Like, Aretha Franklin or, I don't know.”
But after about a half hour of selecting and editing the photos, Richter says she gave up and deleted the whole thing. “If you were to go by Raya, you'd think there would be hundreds of women in their 40s in L.A. at any given time, happily jumping into the surf. Like, this is not my crowd.”
Richter, who eventually gave Hinge a shot, said he met his wife pretty quickly. After going on a few dates, he invited her over to his house to cook him dinner. “Then I started hanging out at her house and met her daughter, and I found myself driving home feeling very, very happy,” he said.
Richter says that when he finally decided she was the one, it was a big deal when he realized he “didn't need” her anymore.
“He has his own business. He has a career that he's been in for years, he's successful, he's well-respected in our community…he's had a child of his own,” she explained. “I've never felt any pressure to act a certain way or to be anyone other than myself. And I've never experienced that with anyone else that I've dated.”
Richter and Herrera announced their engagement in November 2022, and by all accounts, they've been going strong ever since. So, for all you singles experiencing dating app fatigue, it looks like there are some happy endings out there.
