Idina Menzel

Menzel married actor Taye Diggs on January 11, 2003. The pair met in 1995 while performing together in the original production of Rent, in which Diggs played the landlord, Benjamin Coffin III. In September 2009, Menzel gave birth to their son, Walker Nathaniel Diggs. The couple separated in late 2013 after ten years of marriage and subsequently divorced, continuing to co-parent their son.

Menzel later began a relationship with actor Aaron Lohr. The couple purchased a home together in Encino, Los Angeles, in 2015, announced their engagement in September 2016, and were married on September 22, 2017, in a backyard ceremony at their residence.

Idina Kim Mentzel was born on May 30, 1971, in Manhattan, New York City, to Stuart Mentzel, a pajama salesman, and Helene Goldberg, a therapist. She grew up in New Jersey before her family relocated to Syosset, New York, on Long Island. Her family is Jewish, and her grandparents emigrated from Eastern Europe and Russia. Following her parents' divorce when she was 15 years old, she began working as a wedding and bar and bat mitzvah singer to earn money. She adopted the spelling "Menzel" to better reflect the phonetic pronunciation of her surname.

Menzel attended Syosset High School and enrolled at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drama in 1992. In 1995, she auditioned for Jonathan Larson's rock musical Rent. The production became her professional theatrical debut, opening Off-Broadway before transferring to Broadway's Nederlander Theatre in 1996. Her performance as Maureen Johnson earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Following Rent, she originated the role of Kate in Andrew Lippa's Off-Broadway musical The Wild Party (2000) and played Amneris in Broadway's Aida.

In 2003, Menzel originated the role of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, opposite Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda in Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman's musical Wicked. The Broadway production opened at the Gershwin Theatre to commercial success and critical acclaim. For her performance, Menzel won the 2004 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. During her penultimate Broadway performance in January 2005, she cracked a lower rib after falling through a trapdoor during the melting scene, preventing her from performing in her final scheduled show. In 2006, she reprised the role in London's West End production at the Apollo Victoria Theatre, where she became the highest-paid female performer in West End history.

Menzel returned to Broadway in 2014 to star as Elizabeth in the musical If/Then, directed by Michael Greif and co-starring Anthony Rapp, earning her third Tony Award nomination. In 2018, she made her non-musical New York stage debut in Joshua Harmon's play Skintight at the Laura Pels Theatre, later reprising the role at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. In 2024, she co-created and starred in the musical Redwood at La Jolla Playhouse, which transferred to Broadway's Nederlander Theatre in 2025.

Menzel transitioned into screen acting with early appearances in films like Kissing Jessica Stein (2001) and The Tollbooth (2004). In 2005, she reprised her stage role as Maureen in Chris Columbus's film adaptation of Rent. She went on to play Nancy Tremaine in Disney's musical fantasy film Enchanted (2007), a role that famously featured no singing numbers, and portrayed Shelby Corcoran on the television musical series Glee between 2010 and 2013.

In 2013, Menzel voiced Queen Elsa in Disney's animated feature Frozen. Her performance of the soundtrack's centerpiece anthem, "Let It Go", reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100, earned the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and won a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media. At the 86th Academy Awards in 2014, actor John Travolta introduced her with the viral mispronunciation "Adele Dazeem". She reprised the voice role of Elsa in Frozen II (2019) and numerous Disney media spin-offs. Her other film projects include playing Dinah Ratner opposite Adam Sandler in the crime thriller Uncut Gems (2019), Vivian in Kay Cannon's Cinderella (2021), Nancy in the Disney sequel Disenchanted (2022), and Bree Friedman in You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (2023).

Alongside her theater and screen work, Menzel has maintained an active recording career. She released her debut solo album, Still I Can't Be Still, in 1998, followed by Here (2004), I Stand (2008), the holiday record Holiday Wishes (2014), the self-titled pop album Idina (2016), Christmas: A Season of Love (2019), and the dance-pop album Drama Queen (2023). She has headlined major international concert tours, including the Barefoot at the Symphony Tour and the Take Me Or Leave Me Tour, and performed the national anthem at Super Bowl XLIX in 2015.

In 2010, Menzel and Taye Diggs co-founded the A BroaderWay Foundation, an organization that supports girls from underserved communities through performing arts camps, workshops, and educational programs. She has also co-authored two children's books with her sister Cara Mentzel, Loud Mouse (2022) and Proud Mouse (2023).