Who Is Tom Papa's Wife? All About Cynthia Koury-Papa — and How the Comedy Scene Brought Them Together

Mar. 15, 2025

Tom Papa and Cynthia Papa at the Los Angeles premiere of “Unfrosted” held at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on April 30, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.Photo:Alberto Rodriguez/Variety via Getty

Alberto Rodriguez/Variety via Getty

Cynthia Koury-Papa has been the muse for comedian Tom Papa’sstand-up routinefor over two decades — but luckily, she knows it’s all in good fun.

“It’s funny, because she’s a comedian, too,” Tom toldEsquirein 2013. “She doesn’t care … It’s not mean spirited. I’m not ripping her apart. We’re just talking about life.”

Though they grew up in the same small town in New Jersey, the couple met as comedians in New York City. They got married in 2000 and welcomed two daughters. Tom talks about how their lives have changed since the kids left the house in his Netflix comedy specialTom Papa: Home Free, which started streaming on Oct. 29.

“When the first one went we were crying for a month,” he told theLos Angeles Timesin 2024. “But then the second one left and we found ourselves making dinner reservations and kind of excited about the whole thing.”

So, who is Tom Papa’s wife? Here’s everything to know about Cynthia Koury-Papa and her relationship with the comedian.

She was a comedian

Actor Tom Papa and wife Cynthia attend the “The Informant” benefit screening at the Ziegfeld Theatre on September 15, 2009 in New York City.Charles Eshelman/Getty

Charles Eshelman/Getty

Like her husband, Cynthia is no stranger to the stage. She regularly performed at N.Y.C. comedy clubs in the 1990s and was featured inJerry Seinfeld’s 2002 documentaryComedian. In a 2024 interview withBert KreischerandLeeAnn Kreischeron theWife of the Partypodcast, Cynthia said she stopped doing stand-up when her kids were born.

“I started getting on stage less and less,” she said. “It wasn’t as fun for me to just be okay when I used to be sharp … It all just sort of changed when I had the babies … and it didn’t feel the same to me as it once did.”

Now that the kids are out of the house, Cynthia expressed an interest in returning to stand-up comedy.

Cynthia is a teacher

Tom Papa and Cynthia Papa at “The Instigators” New York Premiere at Jazz at Lincoln Center on July 31, 2024 in New York City.Getty

Getty

During the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020, Cynthia took a job teaching students online. She enjoyed it so much that she went back to college to get her degree and now teaches fifth-grade humanities atan Episcopal schoolin California.

“I didn’t want to admit that I loved it,” she said on theWife of the Partypodcast. “To this day, I’m like God, I feel like in some ways I should be doing bigger things but I love working with kids.”

They grew up in the same town

Cynthia Papa and Tom Papa attend Netflix Is A Joke Festival Presents: Dodgers Comedy Night Hosted By Cedric The Entertainer at The Orpheum Theatre on May 08, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.Charley Gallay/Getty

Charley Gallay/Getty

Tom and Cynthia are both from Park Ridge, N.J., a neighborhood about an hour outside of N.Y.C. In their interview on theWife of the Partypodcast, Cynthia said they had the same kindergarten teacher, worked the same summer job and went to a lot of the same high school parties.

Despite all those near-meetings, the couple didn’t really connect until years later, when they were both comedians working in N.Y.C. Cynthia said their bond was instant — so much so that a friend noticed and later asked Tom, “What the hell was that?”

“Something happened,” she told the Kreischers. “There was some kind of electricity.”

Tom and Cynthia have been married for over 20 years

US actor Tom Papa and his wife Cynthia Koury attend the premiere of Apple Original Films' “The Instigators” at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on July 31, 2024.Getty

Tom and Cynthia got married in 2000. Though the comedian has said he never wants to demean marriage, their decades-long relationship is a common subject in his stand-up routine.

“I’ve been married now to the same woman for 22 years,” he said during his 2022 Netflix specialTom Papa: What A Day!“I believe in marriage … It can make your life a lot better if you find the right person — and lower your expectations about what you’re going to get out of it.”

They share two children

Tom and Cynthia are parents to two daughters. While they get their fair share of the spotlight during their father’s comedy bits, the couple said they decided early on to keep their girls off of social media.

They have lots of unique pets

Though their daughters have left home, the Papa’s nest is far from empty. Tom and Cynthia have birds, lizards, cats and dogs — including a pug named Frank who frequentlymakes appearances on Tom’s Instagram.

“They are, in my opinion, the perfect pet for the comedian,” he said of the breed in hisLos Angeles Timesinterview. “Rarely are comedians the beautiful people, and this is true of pugs among dogs … but we love Frank, I mean he’s literally part of the family.”

In his 2020 Netflix specialTom Papa: You’re Doing Great, Tom joked that his household needed male energy because the cats, the lizard and their black lab named Bella were all girls.

Tom joked about how raising kids has changed him and his wife

Cynthia Papa and Tom Papa during The Hollywood Radio And Television Society’s 1st Annual Roast In Honor Of Jeff Zucker at Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, CA, United States.Jeremy Montemagni/FilmMagic

Jeremy Montemagni/FilmMagic

In his 2024 specialTom Papa: Home Free, the comedian talked about what life has been like since his daughters went to college and jokingly warned viewers about the aftermath.

“You should think long and hard about whether you’re gonna have kids,” Tom said. “You should have seen me before this experiment … My wife and I are just husks. We’re just brittle husks of what we were.

He continued, “We’ll be in the kitchen some days, and she’ll be like, ‘We could fool around right here. No one would ever know.’ I’m like ‘Yeah, we could. Or we could just lie down on this cold floor for a while and shut our eyes.’ ”

source: people.com