One Will & Grace star is moving on from their marriage after nearly three decades with their partner.
2023 has seen many of Hollywood’s favorite couples meet their demise. Now, another longstanding union is coming to an end before the year is over.
Will & Grace star Eric McCormack’s wife Janet Leigh Holden has filed for divorce. The couple was married for 26 years.
In her filing, Holden cited “irreconcilable differences” as the cause for divorce. According to documents obtained by USA TODAY that were filed with Los Angeles County Superior Court on Nov. 22, there was no date of separation listed.
In their separation, McCormack’s wife is seeking spousal support. She has also requested the court terminate the actor’s ability to be awarded spousal support.
Eric McCormack and Janet Leigh Holden got married in August 1997. Together, they share one child, 21-year-old son Finnigan Holden McCormack.
The former couple met on the set of the CBS TV series “Lonesome Dove” back in 1994. McCormack portrayed Col. Francis Clay Mosby, while Holden worked as an assistant director.
In 2007, McCormack revealed in an essay for The Guardian that Holden was initially resistant to dating him because of his profession. Obviously, that’s something they ended up working through.
“I met my wife, Janet, in 1994 on the set of a TV series,” he wrote at the time. “She was the assistant director.”
The actor continued, “I was just coming out of a relationship, and not to be trusted. I’d been dating actresses but Janet was different. She wore jeans, drove a pick-up truck.”
“At first she wasn’t too keen,” he wrote. “She knew actors are a lot of work: it would be like taking your work home with you. But I managed to convince her.”
“We had a secret affair the first season,” McCormack revealed of their early relationship. “Actually, it was much worse for her, because she wasn’t supposed to give any of the actors preferential treatment.”
Once the pair went public with their relationship, however, it was a much different story. The Will & Grace star went on to credit his wife for keeping him grounded during the early years of his fame.
“I think I was very lucky that I didn’t get well-known until my early thirties,” he wrote. “If it had happened when I was younger, you might have seen me falling out of nightclubs.”
“I think I conducted myself as a much better human being because I was already married when all that came along,” McCormack said about his relationship. He got married five months after I got the titular role as Will.
“Once in a while I wish that I’d had those crazy parties, but I’d have been scared of ending up as a 29-year-old has-been,” the actor said of his more laidback life.
In April 2020, Eric took to social media to share a photo of himself and Janet at the 1994 Lonesome Dove wrap party. At the time, it marked their first official photo as a couple.
“This is the first shot Janet & I took at the #LonesomeDove Season 1 Wrap Party, circa Dec ’94,” he wrote at the time. “Just so happens this was our ‘coming out’ party. No one on the show knew we’d been dating for months.”
McCormack went on to star in his most famous role just a few months after their marriage. The actor’s portrayal of Will Truman on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace is still one of his most beloved.
Eric won an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in the third season of the series. In 2017, McCormack reprised the role of Will for the Will & Grace reboot.
McCormack is also known for his roles as Grant MacLaren in Netflix’s Travelers and Dr. Daniel Pierce in the TNT crime drama Perception. He is currently featured on the Hulu series The Other Black Girl.
Before his life as an actor and his marriage to Holden, Eric was Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He started acting by performing in high school plays.
McCorrmack left Ryerson University in 1985 to accept a position with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, where he spent five years performing in many stage productions.
During the late 1990s, he made his way to Los Angeles, where he had minor roles. He made his feature film debut in the 1992 science-fiction adventure film The Lost World.
Over the years, McCormack appeared in several television series including Top Cops, Street Justice, Lonesome Dove: The Series, Townies, and Ally McBeal. Then, he landed his breakthrough role on Will & Grace.
Eric’s performance has earned him six Golden Globe nominations and four Emmy nominations. He also won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 2001.
Aside from his work in television, McCormack made his Broadway debut in the 2001 production of The Music Man. He also starred in the 2005 film The Sisters.
Following the series conclusion of Will & Grace in 2006, McCormack starred as the leading role in the New York production of Some Girl(s). He also starred in the television miniseries The Andromeda Strain (2008) and returned to television in 2009 in the TNT drama Trust Me, which was cancelled after one season.
In addition to his professional work, McCormack is also involved in many Los Angeles and Canadian-based charitable organizations, including Project Angel Food. The Wellness Community West Los Angeles Tribute to the Human Spirit Awards dinner presented an award to McCormack for his breast cancer awareness advocacy.
At the time, Eric shared with the audience how his comedy helped his mother, Doris McCormack, endure her breast cancer treatments. Doris was honored at the Lifetime’s Breast Cancer Heroes Luncheon in 2004.
McCormack serves as an honorary board member of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. He was given the MMRF Spirit of Hope Award in October 2006.