Don Cheadle secretly married his long-time partner during the COVID-19 pandemic

Ellen DeGeneres Show guest host Wanda Sykes sat down with comedian Don Cheadle, who revealed some very exciting news.

While a lot of couples had to put their wedding plans on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic, Cheadle did the opposite.

Stream the latest episodes of The Ellen DeGeneres Show for free on 9Now.

"You texted me at the top of the year, I guess, and you told me that you just got married," Sykes recalled.

"And I was like, 'Oh damn, the pandemic got to Don and Bridgid [Coulter]. I was like, 'What the hell happened, man?' I think I just texted something back, like, 'Hey, if you're happy, I'm happy for you.'"

Cheadle joked that he was confused by Sykes' unenthusiastic reaction, as anyone would be, but the guest host explained she was just caught off guard.

In fact she was so stunned because she thought they were already married.

RELATED: Casey Wilson reveals 'unfortunate' wedding anniversary fail on Ellen DeGeneres Show

"I was like, damn, 'Cheadle went Hollywood,'" Sykes laughed. "Because I didn't know you guys weren't married."

"Yeah, I mean, that's understandable given that we've been together 28 years before we got married," Cheadle said.

Earlier in the episode, the pair discussed a very rare moment, where Cheadle bombed on stage during a stand up routine.

The Oceans Twelve actor's comedic career started out brilliantly when he was only a teenager, but his newfound success didn't count when he needed it most.

"When I was in high school, there was open mic night," he recalled.

"Me and my friend were driving by, you know, knuckleheads in high school… we're like, 'I think we could do that'. So we literally went home and came up with some act really quick.

RELATED: Chelsea Handler and Wiz Khalifa reminisce about her dinner party that went wrong

"Like where we would dissect the humour of Nancy… the Nancy comic strip, how incredibly unfunny it is. We would dissect it and show why it was really, really funny."

Incredibly, the comedian and his friend performed incredibly well, and the audience loved their quickly-scripted act.

RELATED: Tyrese Gibson on where he stands with Dwayne Johnson now after their public feud

"We went there that night and we killed. And we were like, 'Oh, this isn't hard.' So we did it again, came back the next weekend… killed it, crushed it. We weren't even old enough to be in the club, we're 17 years old," he said of his quickly developing career.

But unfortunately, it was when Cheadle's parents were invited to see their son perform for the first time that he got his first taste bombing on stage.

The audience — his parents included — didn't laugh at any of his jokes.

"There's nothing that compares to dying on stage," he said, recalling the night.

He's definitely come a long way since that night.

The Ellen DeGeneres Show airs weekdays at 12.00pm on Nine. Catch up on latest episodes on 9Now.