Actor Gary Coleman says he married secretly

updated 9:17 p.m. ET Feb. 12, 2008

LOS ANGELES - Gary Coleman is a not-so-newlywed. The former "Diff'rent Strokes" star married 22-year-old Shannon Price in August on a mountaintop in Nevada, but they have been keeping their vows under wraps, the pair told "Inside Edition."

"Nobody was around but the minister, preacher, the videographers, the photographer, the helicopter pilot and us," Coleman, 40, said on Tuesday's broadcast of the program.

Coleman met Price on the set of the 2006 comedy "Church Ball." Price said it was she who proposed to Coleman, but that he surprised her on her birthday by whisking her to a mountaintop in the Valley of Fire State Park to exchange vows.

She said they kept their wedding secret because she wanted to keep being seen as her own person.

"I just want my own identity as well because I don't want to be known as Gary Coleman's wife," she said.

Coleman played down their age differences, saying "I don't have issues with age, I have issues with intelligence ... She's more intelligent than I am and that's what matters to me."

Price, who is 5-foot-7, and Coleman, who is 4-foot-8, also played down their height gap.

"That doesn't really matter to me," she said. "He was 10 feet tall to me because he was sweet and I really liked his personality."

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