Rachael Leigh Cook Calls Herself the ‘Most Incorrigible Romantic’ — Is The Hallmark Star Married in Real Life?
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Rachael Leigh Cook has been stealing hearts on the Hallmark Channel since 2016, but who has won the Rescuing Christmas star’s heart off-screen? Keep reading to learn more about Rachael Leigh Cook’s ex-husband and whether she is remarried or dating anyone.
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Who is Rachael Leigh Cook’s ex-husband?
Rachael Leigh Cook is currently single, but she was married to Canadian-New Zealand actor Daniel Gillies, who is best known for starring on The CW’s The Vampire Diaries and The Originals.
The pair met in 2003 at a bar in Los Angeles. They got engaged after just five months of dating and tied the knot on Aug 8, 2004. Cook and Gillies waited several years to start a family together, welcoming their first child, daughter Charlotte Easton Gillies, in September 2013.
“We just wanted to give it a beat,” Cook explained during an interview on the Hallmark Channel. “We met and got married pretty darn quickly and there was just so much we wanted to do … all the cliche stuff like travel and accomplish an element of stability in our work lives.” The couple then welcomed their son, Theodore Vigo Sullivan Gillies, in April 2015.
More: Meet the Real-Life Partners of Your Favorite Hallmark Stars
After nearly 15 years of marriage, Cook and Gillies announced their separation in June 2019. “With deep gratitude for every year we have spent together and the thousands of beautiful memories shared, we have mutually decided to separate as a couple,” they said in a joint statement at the time. “This decision isn’t one we have come to easily or lightly. We love and respect each other as parents, people and artists and look forward to maintaining the best parts of our relationship for many years to come.”
More: Meet the Real-Life Kids of Hallmark’s Biggest Stars
Their divorce was finalized in March 2021 and the pair are now focused on co-parenting their two children. Shortly after their split, Cook began dating producer Kevin Mann, but the relationship ended a few years later.
During an October 2022 interview with Us Weekly, Cook described her and Gillies as “happily divorced.” She continued: “We till share Halloween. We go out walking around together and my kids like my boyfriend [Mann] a lot and we’re slowly just navigating what that looks like and it’s tough. It’s tough and it’s certainly relatable to so many families out there.”
“The past is the past. The past literally has zero relevance to every single day forward,” Cook said, adding that she recommends therapy for any other married couples in a similar position. “That’s the thing. We did a little bit of therapy to navigate our separation actually. And that’s the No. 1 thing that’s different from couple’s therapy when you’re going through separation. Divorce therapy is — you don’t get to bring up anything that didn’t happen incredibly recently unless it’s relevant to the days in the future. That’s the best piece of advice I got and would give,” the mom of two explained.
That same month, Cook told PEOPLE that she is “totally open” to getting married again. “I am the most incorrigible full-tilt romantic you have ever met in your whole life, to the point that it’s probably unreasonable,” the Cross Country Christmas starred joked. “So yeah, totally open to that happening again.” She noted that she “will be slightly more cautious in making that decision because I have kids involved and such in my life now.”
Cook rose to fame with the ’90s teen movie She’s All That, starring opposite Freddie Prinze Jr. She made her Hallmark debut in 2015 with Summer Love and has starred in nearly a dozen movies for the network. Her most recent film was the 2023 holiday movie Rescuing Christmas, in which she starred as an anti-Christmas photographer who accidentally wishes away Christmas and recruits the help of her blind date (Sam Page) to bring it back.
For more on Hallmark, check out our gallery below of the adorable Hallmark couples who found love on-screen and off-screen.
