Jean Smart opens up about being ‘very lonely’ after husband’s unexpected death

Jean Smart has opened up about grief a year and a half after the death of her husband.

The Hacks star was in the middle of shooting the Emmy-nominated comedy’s debut season in March 2021 when her husband, Richard Gilliland, died unexpectedly of a heart condition, aged 71.

“He made me laugh all the time. That’s going to be hard to live without,” she said at the time, adding that she never would’ve “dreamed” it would’ve happened “so soon”.

Now, more than a year after his passing, Smart, 71, spoke with Rolling Stone about the loneliness of her “new life”.

“I find it almost harder now, a year and a half later, because you’re kind of running on adrenaline and grief for a while, making sure your kids are OK, just getting things done,” the Mare of Easttown actor explained.

“Now, slowly, the reality of my new life is setting in, and I find that very, very, very, very sad, very lonely.”

“It’s shocking,” Smart said of his sudden death. “You hear about it happening to other people all the time, but when it happens to you, it absolutely knocks you sideways.”

Gilliland was also an actor, best known for his recurring role in 1986 sitcom Designing Women, where he met Smart, who led the series alongside Delta Burke, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts and Meshach Taylor.

“I met him when he was kissing someone else,” Smart quipped in a 2017 interview.

Smart gave birth to their eldest son Connor in 1989 and they later adopted their second, Forrest, in 2009.

In a recent interview with The Independent, Smart’s Hacks co-star Hannah Einbinder described her as a “fierce mama bear”.