Michelle Williams has a family of three. The star welcomed another addition to her family in 2022: her third child and second with husband Thomas Kail. Williams quietly confirmed her pregnancy to Variety in an interview published in May 2022. “As the years go on, you sort of wonder what they might hold for you or not hold for you. It’s exciting to discover that something you want again and again is available one more time,” she said. “That good fortune is not lost on me or my family.”
After announcing the news, Williams and her baby bump were seen out at red carpet events like the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where she premiered her film “Showing Up,” and the Toronto Film Festival.
Before welcoming her latest family addition, Williams already had two children: 17-year-old daughter Matilda from her relationship with the late Heath Ledger and 3-year-old son Hart from her marriage to Kail. The pair met when Kail, who directed Broadway’s “Hamilton,” directed Williams on the set of FX’s “Fosse/Verdon.” They tied the knot in March 2020. When Williams claimed the Golden Globe for outstanding lead actress in a limited series or movie for “Fosse/Verdon” in 2020, she credited abortion access for the ability to design her life her own way.
“I’m grateful for the acknowledgement of the choices I’ve made, and I’m also grateful to have lived at a moment in our society where choice exists, because, as women and as girls, things can happen to our bodies that are not our choice,” she said. “I’ve tried my very best to live a life of my own making and not just a series of events that happened to me. . . . And I wouldn’t have been able to do this without employing a woman’s right to choose – to choose when to have my children and with whom.”
Read on to learn more about Williams’s family.
Matilda Ledger
Williams’s eldest daughter, Matilda, was born in October 2005 to Williams and Ledger, who died in 2008. Her godparents are Ledger and Williams’s “Brokeback Mountain” costar Jake Gyllenhaal and Williams’s “Dawson’s Creek” costar Busy Philipps, per People. For the most part, Matilda has stayed out of the spotlight, living a life away from the cameras.
In her 2022 Variety profile, Williams shared how “Succession” star Jeremy Strong helped her and her daughter in the wake of Ledger’s death. After Ledger died from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills, Williams’s sister, a friend, and Strong all moved into her Brooklyn apartment. “Jeremy was serious enough to hold the weight of a child’s broken heart and sensitive enough to understand how to approach her through play and games and silliness,” she said. “[Matilda] didn’t grow up with her father, but she grew up with her Jeremy and we were changed by his ability to play as though his life depended upon it, because hers did.”
Hart Kail
Williams and Kail’s first child, Hart, was born in 2020 during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, an experience that changed Williams’s perspective on the event. “The world we brought a baby into is not the world we thought we were bringing a baby into, but the baby is ignorant of that,” she told Variety. “He experiences the unmitigated joy of discovery and the happiness of a loving home.”
In another Variety story published the same day, Williams elaborated on motherhood. “There’s nothing that makes you committed to a better world than raising a great kid. It’s the ultimate creative act,” she said, adding: “The most ecstatic moments of life and art are the transcendent ones. Having children is like that. You combine your DNA with someone else to create a new life.”
Baby Kail
At this time, not much is known about Williams’s third child, including their name. Reps for the 43-year-old actor did not respond to POPSUGAR’s request for comment, but she was photographed on Oct. 29, 2022, cradling a newborn during a stroll around New York City with Kail and their son Hart, per the Daily Mail. In November 2022, Williams opened up about her home life to Entertainment Tonight, saying hers is “a busy house, but it’s a happy one.”
