Family first. Leighton Meester has gushed about her private life with husband Adam Brody in rare interviews over the years.
Us Weekly broke the news in February 2013 that Meester and Brody started dating after meeting on the set of the 2011 film The Oranges. A year later, Us exclusively revealed that the pair secretly tied the knot.
“I gain a lot more confidence from time with my friends and family — people whom I love, who love me and whom I’ve built relationships with — and that goes for people at work as well,” the Gossip Girl alum told Shape magazine in 2019. “Truly, those things are what make me the happiest and I think that, if I’m doing well on that side of things, then I’m doing well.”
The twosome welcomed their first child, daughter Arlo, in August 2015.
“I don’t talk about Arlo very much,” Meester told Refinery29 in March 2017. “I am very proud of that area of my life. But I’m also really proud of the show, and of the work I do. I think the perception is: You’re an ingenue, or you’re an icon, or you’re a mom. There’s no in between.”
Brody, for his part, told GQ in August 2019 that Meester is “more inherently private” than he is.
“We’re homebodies,” the O.C. alum said, noting that fatherhood is “the best” thing that’s happened to him. “I mean this cliché — pride and joy. It’s very apt. She’s the thing I’m most proud of and gives me the most joy. She’s just so dang awesome. It just gives you a new perspective in the best way—something to focus on that’s greater and more important than yourself. Also that’s 100 percent true and even in another way. She has even become my security blanket for the outside world in terms of ‘I don’t need your approval I have my daughter, f—k you.’”
Us confirmed in April 2020 that Meester is pregnant with baby No. 2.
Scroll through for Meester’s most-telling quotes about her family life:
