Who Is Ty Burrell's Wife? All About Holly Burrell

Ty Burrell married his wife Holly Burrell in 2000

Ty Burrell is a loving husband to his wife, Holly Burrell.

Despite keeping his personal life mostly under wraps, this Modern Family star has shared a few details of how he and his wife’s relationship keeps getting stronger each year. He's also not afraid to talk about just how much he adores family.

“My wife has taught me about unconditional love,” Ty said in an interview with Good Housekeeping. “When there's a conflict, there's never a thought that we won't work it out.”

Ty met Holly in the late ‘90s while they were both working at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington D.C. according to Bustle.

In a 2010 interview with Redbook, the actor revealed he knew he wanted to marry Holly, "on our first date."

"I was slow on the uptake, so it took me a couple of years," he added.

In 2000, Ty and Holly secretly married, and a decade later, the couple adopted two daughters, Frances and Greta.

So who is Ty Burrell's wife? Here's everything to know about Holly Burrell and her two-decade-long relationship with the actor.

She met Ty at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington D.C.

After graduating from the University of Utah with a bachelor's degree in theater, Holly moved to Washington D.C. to work at the Shakespeare Theater. That’s where she met Ty — and love quickly blossomed.

“It was the opening night of a play we were in,” Ty told Redbook after admitting that he knew Holly was the woman he wanted to marry on the night of their first date. “We were understudying lovers in Twelfth Night.”

Ty and Holly relocated to New York City to try and make something out of their acting careers. While Ty is now known for his quirky role as Phil Dunphy on Modern Family, Holly decided the entertainment industry wasn’t for her.

"After a couple years, I decided I probably was not cut out for the business," Holly told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2015. "You have to really want to do it and I just didn't have the thing you need. I was interested in other things."

She and Ty have two daughters

Holly and Ty became first-time parents in 2010 when the couple adopted their daughter Frances through adoption. Two years later, they expanded their family with their second daughter, Greta, also via adoption.

“This might sound really dumb, but I guess I didn't realize that you actually fall in love with children,” Ty told Elle in 2011. "That like with any other relationship, as time goes on you actually love them more."

She is a professional chef

Holly quickly found a new passion: cooking. She studied at the French Culinary Institute at the International Culinary Center in New York and graduated with honors from the pastry program. After graduating, Holly worked in a small bakery.

Once Ty landed his role on Modern Family, however, she and her family packed their bags and moved to Los Angeles so Ty could pursue his acting career, before eventually relocating to Utah. But Holly didn’t let the various moves deter her culinary passions.

“Food is a primary source of joy for us,” Holly said in an interview with the Utah Farm and Fork. “We both love to eat.”

Despite having graduated from one of the best culinary schools in America, Holly said she prioritizes practicality when it comes to cooking for her family.

“I value meals that we can put together in about an hour,” Holly said. “Someday when our kids are grown, I’ll relish taking half a day to prepare something, but right now I want something healthy, tasty, and reliably fast.”

She is a shy and private person

In 2017, Holly appeared as a guest on The Radiance Project, an astrology-focused podcast hosted by Hedi Rose Robbins. During the show, Holly talks about her family, music, and her love for food, but not before Robbins filled listeners in on how she had to beg Holly to participate.

“Just for the record, guys, Holly does not like to be in the spotlight,” Robbins said after introducing Holly. “When I invited her to come on, I said ‘Holly, take a deep breath and then read the rest of this email before you say no.’” Robbins also refers to Holly as a “private person,” to which Holly responded: “I’m shy by nature, I guess.”

Unlike Ty, Holly isn’t active on social media.

She and Ty live in Salt Lake City

Holly grew up in Fruit Heights, Utah, but after spending time in D.C., New York, and Los Angeles, she and her husband decided to make Salt Lake City their permanent home.

“I first came to Utah to perform at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City,” Ty told the Utah Farm and Fork. “I did that for two summers and, in between, met Holly in Washington D.C., where we were both performing at the Shakespeare Theater. I was already in love with Utah and after she and I fell in love it was always in the back of our minds to live here someday.”

She and Ty helped save Salt Lake City from the financial ruin caused by the COVID-19 pandemic

In 2020, Ty and Holly donated $100,000 to Salt Lake City and the Downtown Alliance in an effort to help hard-hit workers in the service industry. The city used this money to create Tip Your Server, a program that provides grants to restaurant and bar employees who’ve been laid off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I have a firsthand sense of how vulnerable that population is,” Ty told DesertNews at the time. “The job is essentially a cash situation because of tips — and when that’s cut off there’s no safety net. I remember when I got laid off as a waiter and trying to apply for unemployment; it’s very difficult because the hourly wage is so low. It can be really, really tough, and this situation we find ourselves in now is really uniquely bad for servers.”

She and Ty co-own a restaurant and a cocktail bar

Both Ty and Holly worked as servers in the late 90s. “I was a waiter at multiple restaurants, as was she,” Ty told DesertNews. “I think she was actually pretty good at it; I, on the other hand, was uniquely bad at waiting tables.”

Today, the couple are part-owners of Bar-X and Beer Bar, one is a speakeasy-style cocktail bar and the other a beer bar, both in Salt Lake City, the Cotton Bottom Inn in Holladay, and The Eating Establishment, a diner in Park City.

“A lot of people ask me why we are so focused on revamping these old places throughout the valley, and it’s really because we see these places as worth preserving,” Ty told Utah Business in 2021.

“It’s funny, we really didn’t set out to do food and beverage, or refurbish all of these locations, but it has been a really cool experience for everybody involved. More than anything, our hope is to bring all of these locations back to their former glory, to keep the spirit alive, all while adding our own touches along the way.”

She is Ty’s rock and biggest supporter

While the Burrell family likes to keep their personal life private, Ty hasn’t had any issue telling the press just how much he loves his wife Holly. In an interview with Elle, Ty said he was “overwhelmed with emotion” when he decided it was time to pop the question.

“I was in Mississippi playing Oberon in a not-so-great production of A Midsummer Night's Dream,” Ty said. “Against her conservative parents' wishes, she was coming down to live with me in a roach-infested former army bunker. I was making $250 a week and had zero prospects for the future,” Ty continued. “Driving to the airport, I found myself overwhelmed with emotion, thinking, I need to marry this woman because she clearly loves me for who I am. I had literally nothing going for me, and she was actually seeking me out.”

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