Jean Smart, 75, Has Lived a Life Full of Love, Loss and Surprises — Her Story in Photos

Jean Smart’s life has unfolded through career highs, motherhood, devastating losses, and a new chapter in love. From becoming a mother against frightening medical odds to adopting a son at 57, her story has taken some unexpected turns.

For decades, Jean Smart has made audiences laugh, cry, and marvel at her range, but behind the celebrated career is a deeply personal story filled with love, motherhood, heartbreak, and unexpected second chances. In a May 6, 2026, podcast episode, she revealed that some of the biggest chapters of her life began in circumstances she never could have predicted.

Long before Hacks made her one of television’s most celebrated stars, Jean was building a career as a working actress and appearing on Designing Women.

It was on that set, while the show was still so new that it had not even aired, that she first encountered the man who would become her husband. Jean recalled arriving for a table read for the show’s fifth episode and noticing him standing upstairs talking to someone.

It Started With a Familiar Face on the Set

“He looked familiar. I had seen him in some stuff,” she said, but it was his appearance that immediately caught her attention. “But that smile and those little smile lines. I thought, ‘Oh, I hope he’s here to be on our show.'” He was, in fact, there to appear on the series, and Jean soon discovered that he had already met or worked with three of the four women in the cast.

She also remembered that he had briefly dated Delta Burke and described him as “very forward and cheeky.” Jean joked that the reason she was being so nice to him was that the actresses took turns looking after guest stars.

“And I said, you know, the only reason I’m being really nice to you is because every week one of us is assigned to sort of take care of the guest star on the show. And this is my week,” she recalled. Their relationship would eventually become a family story of its own, but one of the biggest surprises came when Jean discovered that she was pregnant.

The Pregnancy That Terrified Her

The timing was almost cinematic. Jean said the night her character got married on Designing Women was also the night she realized she was pregnant. She was sitting in her dressing room in a tight corset-style wedding dress, smoking a cigarette and looking at herself in the mirror when she suddenly thought, “Jean, you are pregnant. You know you were pregnant.”

That night, she received confirmation from her doctor. “I just put out the cigarette. I said that’s it, no more of those,” Jean recalled during the podcast Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

But the discovery quickly became frightening because she had Type 1 diabetes and had not planned the pregnancy. She said her doctor was alarmed by her blood sugar levels and warned her about potentially serious complications for both her and the baby.

“My doctor almost stopped speaking to me. And he just freaked out at me and started telling me that my baby was gonna have heart problems, and I was going to go blind. And I was gonna lose my kidneys,” she recalled.

In a 2013 Senate testimony, Jean similarly described being warned about the risks of Type 1 diabetes during pregnancy and said she and her husband were advised to terminate the pregnancy because her blood sugar had not been well controlled.

Instead, she found a specialist at the Sansum Clinic in Santa Barbara who helped her navigate the pregnancy. The regimen was intense. “I had to become like the poster child for pregnant diabetics,” Jean said, explaining that she spoke with the specialist every day about her blood sugar, food, exercise, and insulin.

She was pricking her fingers 12 times a day, taking insulin and even getting up at 4 a.m. for injections. And she was doing all of it while continuing to work. Despite the terrifying predictions, Jean said the pregnancy ultimately went well. Her baby was, in her words, “perfect.”

The experience became an important part of Jean’s story as a mother, especially because motherhood would later take her somewhere she had never expected to go.

At 57, She Started Over With a Baby

Jean became a mother for the second time in her late 50s when she and her husband adopted a baby from China. In the podcast and a Glamour interview, Jean said she had actually begun trying to persuade her husband to have another child when she was in her early 50s, at a point when she felt that “my life was peaking and everything was just the best.”

But the couple put the idea aside after Jean’s father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Her husband also had another concern. “Richard kept saying, ‘Oh, I think we’re too old,'” Jean recalled.

Eventually, after Jean broke down crying, he relented. “And I said, ‘Well, yeah, maybe when we first started talking about it, we weren’t.’ But then I just cried one day, and he finally went, ‘Okay, okay. Just don’t cry.'”

The adoption itself took years and involved “mountains of paperwork.” By the time the baby was finally placed in their arms, however, the doubts had disappeared. “But the second this baby was handed to us, we were just so besotted,” Jean told Glamour. “It was the best.”

Her older son was already an adult when the family began the adoption process, and Jean recalled that he had to complete some paperwork himself because he was no longer a minor. When the family eventually traveled to China, he was 19. The older boy also gave Jean a perspective on adoption that stayed with her.

After experiencing life with his biological family and his newly adopted brother, he told her, “You don’t feel any different.” Jean understood exactly what he meant. “When they put that baby in your arms,” she said, “you suddenly realize you’re the person that’s gonna protect and keep that baby alive, and that baby needs you so much.”

According to her Glamour interview, her younger son, Forrest, eventually grew into a teenager who could make his mother laugh while also reminding her that she was, in fact, his mother.

Asked whether having a child later in life made her feel younger, Jean said, “Kids keep you young, absolutely.” But she added that her attempts to embrace that youthful feeling could embarrass him. “They’re going, ‘Don’t do that. You’re old. Stop it. It’s embarrassing,'” she said.

Then Her Family Faced a Loss She Never Saw Coming

The joy of expanding her family was followed years later by one of the most painful chapters of Jean’s life. Her husband died unexpectedly, leaving her to raise their younger son without him. In an interview with The New Yorker, Jean spoke about how sudden the loss was and how it happened while she still had work left to complete on Hacks.

“I still had a week of ‘Hacks’ left to do,” she said. “That was hard. I had to do a funeral scene.” She described herself as “a wreck” at the time, although she said the scene ultimately turned out to be funny.

Jean also spoke warmly about what her husband had meant to her career, saying he had sacrificed opportunities of his own so she could pursue hers. “He was one of those actors who never got the chance to really show what he could do,” she said. “He really sacrificed his career for me to be able to take advantage of my opportunities.”

Then came the reality of continuing to work while grieving and raising a young child. In a 2022 interview with ELLE, Jean described being a single working mother as “the hardest thing I’ve ever done, not having my husband.”

She admitted that even while working, part of her mind remained at home, worrying about whether her son had eaten breakfast or made it to school on time. Yet there was one simple thing that helped remind her of what mattered most. “My 14-year-old still kisses me and says, ‘I love you.’ That’s as good as it gets,” she said.

The loss also changed Jean’s outlook. “I’m a very, very optimistic person,” she said in the podcast interview, explaining that the experience made her realize how quickly something terrible could happen.

She said she wanted to “get that feeling back.” Watching her children move forward helped. “I guess watching my kids overcome all that and be happy and thriving,” Jean said, “that’s probably what helps the most.” And her younger son’s happiness offered one especially bright spot. At the time of the interview, he was appearing in a school play, and Jean was eager to see him perform.

“My little one, he’s just having the best time in this play,” she said. “I can’t wait to see him tonight.”

Before That, There Was Another Heartbreak

Jean has also spoken about the death of a man she had once been married to before Richard and the complicated feelings surrounding that relationship. In the podcast, she recalled that although they had divorced, they had been talking about getting back together.

“Yeah, we were very young, but actually, we were divorced, but we were talking about getting back together,” Jean said. The loss left her having to keep moving forward, particularly for her children.

“But people would say to me, ‘Oh, you’re so strong, you’re so strong,’ and I go, ‘well, I don’t know, am I?'” she recalled. “I mean, is strength if you don’t have any choice? You just keep putting one foot in front of the other? And because you’re doing it for your kids.”

Jean acknowledged that there were moments when she would have preferred to retreat completely. “For a while anyway, I would have just gone to bed and pulled the covers over my head,” she said.

Then, less than two years later, she faced another frightening personal moment when she learned she needed heart surgery. The difficult chapters, however, did not stop Jean from eventually opening herself up to something she had not experienced in decades. This time, it was romance.

Then Came a New Man – and a Very Awkward First Date

After spending more than three decades away from the dating scene, Jean admitted that getting back out there was anything but effortless. “I have an extremely lovely man, and I’m very grateful, but going on a date basically for the first time in, you know, 30-plus years, 35 years, is insanely demoralizing,” she said.

She met her current boyfriend at a party hosted by comedian Caroline Rhea. The meeting happened on the dance floor on Rhea’s patio. Jean said he later called her, and they went out to dinner. She was nervous enough to spend much of the evening mentally criticizing herself.

“And I remember standing outside myself, watching myself in this restaurant. Just going, ‘Oh God, you didn’t just say that. Oh, could you be more boring? Could you be less interesting? Oh, my God! Oh my God, all night,'” she recalled.

She left the date convinced it had gone terribly. “I went home thinking, I will never hear from this man again!” Jean said. But then he texted her. “So then he started texting me. So I was like, ‘oh wow. I didn’t send him running 100 miles the other direction,'” she said.

There was one detail that initially made the situation even more surreal for Jean: he was younger than her. When Julia asked his age, Jean revealed that he was 67. The relationship was clearly making Jean happy, though she admitted the age difference could make her stop and think.

However, by September 2024, Joe Pacheco was publicly referring to Jean as his date for the Emmys. In a September 2024 Instagram post, Joe shared a photo from the event and wrote, “Heading to the Emmys with my date, the incredible Jean Smart! She’s AMAZING! @realjeansmart.”

The relationship has also appeared in glimpses of their life away from Hollywood. In a February 2026 Instagram post, Joe wrote that he was in Paris with his “gal,” who was working there, and thanked her for bringing him along.

He wrote, “Spent the other day roaming the streets while Jean was working with my new pal Chris, who took the most amazing photos.” He ended the post by thanking her for “the best birthday ever! ❤️🍾”

Jean has also mentioned her boyfriend in connection with her work. In a CBS News interview with Tracy Smith, she revealed that he is an actor and had been helping her rehearse lines for her Broadway show.

“I’ve been running lines with my boyfriend, so that’s been very helpful,” Jean said. When asked whether he was a good scene partner, her answer was simple. “Yes, he’s a wonderful actor.”

The couple is not living together, however, because Jean’s sons live with her. “Because both of my sons live with me,” she explained during the podcast. She said Connor lives in the guest house, adding that having him there has been particularly meaningful. “I’m back because I don’t see him that much but he’s there, right, um, and that’s been my saving grace.”

Through It All, Her Career Kept Moving

While Jean’s personal life has gone through enormous changes, her professional life has continued to reach new heights. The Television Academy says Jean has won seven Emmy Awards, including four for her role as Deborah Vance on Hacks. She is also one of only two actors to have won an Emmy in the comedy lead, supporting and guest categories.

Her honors include three Golden Globes, three SAG-AFTRA Actor Awards, six Critics’ Choice Awards and a Grammy nomination. Her return to Broadway in Call Me Izzy also brought another major career milestone.

The performance earned Jean a 2026 Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance, while she was also inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2026.

For someone who once wondered why anyone would want to read a book about her life, Jean has accumulated quite a story. In The New Yorker, she admitted that she had only recently begun considering a memoir. Before that, she said, “Good God, why would anybody want to read a book about my life? It’s not that interesting.”

But she also acknowledged that the personal experiences she had endured had changed that perspective. “I’ve been through some personal things in the last year that someday, maybe I’d want to write about,” she said.