Adam Brody is reflecting on the life lessons he’s learned from his more than a decade-long marriage to Leighton Meester.
“That there’s a duality in all of us,” Brody, 46, told Elle of the wisdom he’s picked up from marriage. “Oftentimes, I feel mature and responsible, and other times, I feel like a little boy still, and I can’t believe I’m the age I am.”
He continued, “But I think what I’ve learned is, if you want it to last and you’re taking it seriously, there’s a certain level of humbling yourself that is required. You have to be willing to adjust. Not change the core of who you are, but really factor someone else’s wants and desires and needs into the equation. You’re not always going to be right, and you have to accept that. It’s a lot easier to always be right when you’re single.”
Brody and Meester, 40, began dating in 2013 and tied the knot the following year. They have since welcomed their first child, daughter Arlo, in 2015 and their second child, a boy whose name has not been publicly shared, in 2020.
Years after their marriage, Brody publicly revealed that he actually first met Meester when she was on Gossip Girl — and the pair later reconnected on the set of the 2011 movie The Oranges. (Meester starred as Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl from 2007 to 2012.)
“Josh Schwartz produced both shows and literally the first time we met, that whole cast was eating at Canter’s [Deli in Los Angeles] and I lived at Canter’s for like my entire 20s. And I was leaving, and he introduced all of us,” he said on a 2021 episode of the “Unqualified” podcast, adding that he “bumped into” Meester over the next couple of years before collaborating on The Oranges. “I was seeing someone at the time [when we did the movie]. So, we met kind of through mutual work friends off and on. And then we didn’t get together about a year after that movie when I was single.”
He continued, “But I had no idea whether she was a good person or not. And, in fact, kind of assumed she probably wasn’t for like the first handful of years that I didn’t know her, just because, I don’t know, Gossip Girl. Not that I tagged all actresses with that or anything — I didn’t. And I like to date actors. I never believe that stigma.”
