Real World: Pam and Judd still together

In 1994, seven strangers were picked to live in a house for the groundbreaking third season of MTV’s The Real World, set in San Francisco. Twenty-two years later, two of them, Dr. Pam Ling and Judd Winick, are celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary.

The key to their success, Winick says, has been not actually getting together until the cameras stopped rolling. “I can’t imagine you’re completely you when you’re on camera,” he told The New York Times. “It’s when the camera stops that you finally get to assess.”

The pair remained famously in the friend zone throughout their season of The Real World, only getting together after rushing to be at castmate Pedro Zamora’s bedside before he died of AIDS. They tied the knot on Sept. 9, 2001.

Today, Dr. Ling is a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, while Winick is writing comic books and graphic novels. Together, they have two children and honor their former roommate by helping to oversee the Pedro Zamora Young Leaders Scholarship which, according to its website, “seeks to support efforts of emerging young leaders who share Pedro’s passionate commitment to ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic.”

Throughout the recent NYT profile, the couple detailed some of the bumps in their road — none of which involved reality television. They credit their continued romance to several things, not the least of which are embracing differences, communication, Hamilton, and Star Wars.

“Celebrate your common joys,” Ling advised.

Read the full profile here.