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All About Jean Smart's Kids, Connor and Forrest
The Emmy-winning Hacks star, who hosts the Season 50 premiere of Saturday Night Live on September 28, is a proud mom of two.
Jean Smart, 73, has been a fixture on television since she played Charlene Frazier Stillfield on the 1980s sitcom Designing Women, and recently won her sixth Emmy for her role as Deborah Vance on the series Hacks. While Smart has been acting in movies and TV shows like Fargo, The Watchmen, and Mare of Easttown since the '80s, she has never hosted Saturday Night Live — until the Season 50 premiere on September 28.
While Smart has spent decades in the spotlight, her two children live mostly out of the public eye. When Smart won an Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series with her kids by her side, she shouted her sons out during her acceptance speech, calling them “my two wonderful and unselfish children... who are both very courageous in their own right.”
Below, learn more about her late husband, Richard Gillibrand, and her sons, Connor Gillibrand and Forrest Gillibrand.
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Jean Smart's husband, Richard Gilliland, died of a heart condition in 2021
Jean Smart was married to her husband, Richard Gilliland, for 34 years before he died unexpectedly of a heart condition in 2021 at the age of 71.
The two originally met on the set of Designing Women, when he played the boyfriend of Annie Potts’ character.
"I thought he was really cute, and I'd watch him kissing Annie, going hmm, okay," Smart told Drew Barrymore in May 2024.
"I asked him into my trailer to help me with a crossword puzzle. He invited me to see a play he was doing. And told him at one point, towards the end of the week — because we were flirting like mad with each other — I said,' you know, I have to tell you, the reason I'm being so friendly and forward is because every week one of us is assigned to the guest star, to make them feel at home and make them feel comfortable, and show them around. You you happen to be my week'," she recounted to Barrymore. "He didn't buy that at all."
The couple wed in 1987, with a ceremony in the rose garden of their Designing Women co-star Dixie Carter.
"I've lost a sibling. That's a different, whole different experience. Losing your mate of 35 years — I mean, literally half my life I lived with him is just kind of indescribable," she said in a May 2024 episode of Who's Talking to Chris Wallace? "You go through this period of thinking it's just not real. It's just this isn't real. You know? This just doesn't make any sense."
The couple have two sons, Connor Gillibrand, 34, and Forrest Gillibrand, 15.
Jean Smart's son Connor Gillibrand is 34
Jean Smart and Richard Gillibrand's oldest son, Connor Douglas Gilliland, was born on October 25, 1989. Connor Gillibrand is not on social media, and largely lives his life out of the spotlight.
Connor Gillibrand supported his mom at the April 2022 ceremony where Smart received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In a May 2024 appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Smart opened up about why both of her sons were living at home: Connor moved in to help out following Richard Gillibrand's passing in 2021.
"My older one is great. He's been he's been living with me... since we lost his dad," Smart told Clarkson. "And he's been incredibly helpful, and so he's now going to be ensconced in this little guest house that's right next door."
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Jean Smart adopted Forrest Gillibrand in 2009
Smart and Richard Gillibrand adopted Forrest Gillibrand from China in May 2009. He was born in July 2008. The Hacks star told Glamour that the decision to welcome a second child so long after having Connor required her to "twist my husband’s arm a bit," but "the second this baby was handed to us, we were just so besotted. It was the best."
Smart introduced Forrest when they walked the red carpet together at the 2021 Emmy Awards.
While walking with the red carpet with Smart at the 2022 Screen Actors Guild Awards, Forrest Gillibrand told E! that he was "very proud of her."
Forrest Gillibrand is only a teenager, but he might already be following in his parents' acting footsteps. In a May 2024 New York Times profile, Smart revealed that he was in rehearsals for his high school's production of The Pirates of Penzance. That same month, in an interview with Glamour, Smart spoke about Forrest Gillibrand, saying, "my youngest is just an amazing person."
"Kids keep you young, absolutely," she continued. "But then you end up embarrassing them because you do things because you’re feeling young and they’re going, 'Don’t do that. You’re old. Stop it. It’s embarrassing.'"
Watch Jean Smart host the Saturday Night Live Season 50 premiere on September 28, airing at 11:30 p.m. on NBC and Peacock, streaming next day on Peacock.
