While chatting with PEOPLE about his return to The Bold and the Beautiful, the 65-year-old actor revealed new details about his nuptials

with singer-songwriter Michelle Wolf. The pair’s “private” ceremony was attended by “about 40” of their closest friends and family members, plus “a DJ.”

 

 

“It was just so cool that it was just a big kind of funfest that doesn’t happen very often in life where everybody lets loose,” he continues. “And it was one of those days where that happens. So really blessed to just have that sort of window of celebration you don’t get to have very often.”

Wolf announced her marriage to Wagner on Instagram on May 31. Alongside a group of wedding photos — which featured Wagner’s son Peter, whom he shares with ex-wife Kristina, and Wolf’s daughter, Ornella, in attendance — Wolf wrote: “We did it!!!!!! MARRIED in front of our little family!! #MrAndMrs ♥️♥️♥️ 💃🕺.”

Wagner and Wolf began dating in January 2021 and took their relationship public on Instagram later that same year. At the time, Wolf shared a clip of Wagner filming the pair in front of a mirror as they embraced. She wrote over the clip, “My man ❤️,” and added in the caption, “Love. ❤️.”

Back in April, PEOPLE confirmed that Wagner would be returning to The Bold and the Beautiful to reprise his role as Nick Marone, who he played on the series from 2003 to 2012. Outside of a brief appearance on the show in 2022, this summer marks his big return to the CBS long-running daytime soap.

Wagner tells PEOPLE it was “great” to work again with Katherine Kelly Lang, who plays Brooke, and teases that his character will “surprise” her as “her heart’s breaking” because of Thorsten Kaye’s Ridge.

He has “one goal,” Wagner says: “To get Brooke to wake up to the insanity that she’s been in for so long.” For Nick, Ridge is a “fly on my shoulder.” Ridge and Brooke’s dynamic might be complicated, but it’s “totally uncomplicated” for Nick.

The breakout star of this year’s football season isn’t one of the players. It’s a 22-year-old recent college graduate who posts videos of herself baking cinnamon rolls, showing off quirky needlepoint projects and packing for away games. She also happens to be married to New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, who will be playing the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Ann Michael Maye — yes, she’s got one of those disarmingly charming Southern double first names — is now a bona fide influencer with around 500,000 followers each on TikTok and Instagram. The comments on her posts hail her as the “queen of the north,” despite her roots in North Carolina, and insist that Gisele Bündchen, the former wife of a former Patriots quarterback, would never show her supporters a day in her life or buy groceries at Stop & Shop. People support her with the fervor of fans cheering for an athlete … if her sport were run-of-the-mill domestic tasks.

There’s no doubt that WAGs — that is, the wives and girlfriends of professional athletes — are having a cultural moment. In recent years, their ranks have swelled with A-listers who are famous in their own right. There’s superstar Taylor Swift, now engaged to Kansas City Chiefs tight end, Travis Kelce; Hailee Steinfeld, married to Buffalo Bills quarterback, Josh Allen; and Olivia Culpo, married to San Francisco 49ers running back, Christian McCaffrey. Then, there’s a whole other tier of WAGs who were largely unknown when they began dating or married elite athletes, but aren’t shy about capitalizing on the fame and visibility that goes hand-in-hand with those relationships. In the age of social media (and lucrative brand deals), that’s just good sense.

It’s also true that the whole concept of a WAG feels inherently misogynistic. Taking a woman and reducing her to the fact that she romantically wrangled a physically impressive specimen is icky. It’s particularly unsettling in a landscape where female athletes struggle to get the same support or traction. Nonetheless, I have to admit WAGs are mesmerizing to watch, and their proximity to fame is the reason we know they exist. So what makes Ann Michael so compelling?

In a way, she’s antithetical to the WAGs we typically see — she’s not dripping in designer clothes or sporting 24-inch hair extensions. She wasn’t a celebrity whose established clout led to her introduction to her partner, like Gisele, Cardi B or Swift. She’s a craft-loving pilates enthusiast and recent college graduate thrust into this role because she married her middle school sweetheart, who has a $36.6 million contract. There’s something ridiculously wholesome about seeing someone become a star because they excelled in the position they were given.

Ann Michael is an influencer, but she’s not quite a personality. We know what she’s making and wearing, but not what she’s thinking. She hosts the NBC Sports Boston show “Beyond Bakemas,” which spun off from a series she posted on social media. From lurking on her LinkedIn profile, we know she studied business administration at the University of North Carolina, interned with Deloitte Consulting and served as vice president of finance for her sorority. In high school, she was the captain of at least three different sports teams.