Jean Smart: A year and a half after her husband’s death, Jean Smart has opened up about her sadness.
The Hacks star was filming the Emmy-nominated comedy’s first season in March 2021 when her husband, Richard Gilliland, died suddenly of a heart issue at the age of 71.
“He always made me chuckle. That’s going to be hard to live without,” she stated at the time, adding that she never would’ve “dreamed” it would’ve happened “so soon”. Jean Smart, 71, spoke with Rolling Stone about the loneliness of her “new existence” more than a year after his death.
“A year and a half later, I find it almost worse because you’re kind of running on adrenaline and sadness for a while, making sure your kids are OK, just getting things done,” the Mare of Easttown star stated. “Now, gradually, the truth of my new existence is dawning on me, and I find it so very, very, very sad, extremely lonely.”
“It’s shocking,” Smart remarked of his untimely demise. “You hear about it all the time happening to other people, but when it happens, it really knocks you sideways.”
Gilliland was also an actress, best known for a recurrent part in the 1986 sitcom Designing Women, where he met Smart, who co-hosted the show with Delta Burke, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts, and Meshach.
Smart gave birth to their first child, Connor, in 1989, and then adopted their second child, Forrest, in 2009.
For the latest news: Toronto: Eight teenage girls have been charged with murder after a gang attack