Paris Hilton, Leighton Meester and Adam Brody,Mandy Moore, Joshua Jackson, and more lost their homes during the fires. More than half of the structural damages occurred in Pacific Palisades where the wildfires began on Tuesday, January 7, 2025, burned for three weeks, and devastated the affluent community.
In the year since the fires, the residents of Los Angeles – both celebrity and not – have worked to rebuild what was lost. Here’s a look at the lives of the celebrities whose homes were destroyed in the fires and how they’ve persevered.
Paris is an LA icon. Last year, she was left “heartbroken” when she watched her $8.4 million Malibu mansion “burn to the ground on live TV. To Instagram, Paris wrote: “I’m standing here in what used to be our home, and the heartbreak is truly indescribable. When I first saw the news, I was in complete shock—I couldn’t process it. But now, standing here and seeing it with my own eyes, it feels like my heart has shattered into a million pieces.”
Paris and her husband Carter Reum were raising their two kids, Phoenix and London, in the Malibu home. Phoenix even took his first steps there. After the fires, Paris pledged $150,000 for the GoFundMe Wildfire Relief Fund, and helped raise $800k for efforts.
Since their loss, the family has recovered. The reality TV star purchased a 12-bedroom, 20-bathroom estate in Beverly Hills, which was previously owned by Mark Wahlberg. Paris spent an astonishing $63.1 million for the mansion.
The 41-year-old actress lost her Altadena home in the LA fires. She lived there with her husband, Taylor Goldsmith, and their three children, August “Gus,”Oscar “Ozzie,” and Louise “Lou” – who was only a few months old at the time of the fire.
Mandy took to social media, writing: “We lost our garage and back house. Everyone we know lost everything. Every house on our street is gone. My in-laws. My brother and sister-in-law – 6 weeks from welcoming their first baby. Our best friends. Feeling weird survivor’s guilt.”
On Wednesday, January 7, she shared an update on her devastating loss, writing to her 5.4 million Instagram followers: “There is so much I could say but I’ll just leave it with this. I can’t believe it’s been a year. The trauma and grief is still so palpable. Our neighborhood. Our town. Our friends. Our sense of safety was compromised and it takes time to earn that back.”
Tonight, Mandy is participating in A Concert for Altadena, benefitting the Altadena Builds Back Foundation. Joining her is Brad Paisley, Brandon Flowers of The Killers, and John C. Reilly.
Top Gun: Maverick actor Miles Teller and his wife, Keleigh, lost their Pacific Palisades home worth $12.1 million. Keleigh shared a photo of their house on social media before it became encased by flames, expressing her gratitude for those who had helped.
“Snapped this driving out… To everyone reaching out I can’t thank you enough, your kind hearts have meant the world, and I’ll never forget them,” she wrote.
Keleigh, who married Miles in 2019, lost her wedding dress in the fires. But for Christmas, the 38-year-old Eternity actor surprised his wife with a remade version of the very special gown, designed by Monique Lhuillier.
Adam and Leighton lost their LA home in the fires. The famous couple bought the $6.5 million home in 2019, where they raised their daughter, Arlo, ten and their son, five. While Adam and Leighton have not shared publicly about their loss, Leighton has volunteered regularly with Feeding America, which is a key organization working to feed those impacted by the fires.
Both Adam and Leighton have had busy years since the fires – with Adam starring in Netflix’s Nobody Wants Thisand Leighton in HBO’s I Love LA. The couple attended the 2026 Critics Choice Awards on January 4, where Adam was nominated for Best Actor in a comedy series.
The Dawson’s Creek actor lost his home in Topanga Canyon to the fires, sharing in a statement: “First and most importantly, all the people closest to me affected by the fire are ok. My daughter, my family, my neighbors all made it out safely.”
Joshua lived there with his daughter, Juno Rose, five, who he shares with Jodie Turner-Smith. A few months later, he revealed to Extra TV that he was rebuilding his home, including a special rainbow-themed bedroom for Juno.
“It’s hard, and a lot of people are going through it. Everybody’s going through it in their own way, but for me, there was no question of rebuilding, and I wanna build a place for me and my daughter quick enough that it will still be her childhood home,” Joshua explained.
I felt like our connection was this cynicism we had. I always thought that was interesting—you create an alliance, whether it be with a best friend or a family member, that you have this viewpoint on something, but it’s not always forever. So Joanne and Morgan shared philosophies until Joanne kind of grew out of it, and it just felt really right that that would kind of piss Morgan off. When I paired off with my husband, Simon—
Sara: What is this “paired off”? I’ve never heard you use this term.
Erin: Really? [Shrugs] I don’t know. But when Simon and I got together, Sara was very supportive and connected to him, and we didn’t have that issue.
Sara: But in life it’s hard when you’re accustomed to a certain dynamic and that dynamic shifts. Like, Erin hasn’t been to my house in two years. Normally, she’d be done with work like, “I’m coming over.” She’ll cook me dinner, she’ll put my kids to bed. She’s literally not been in my house for a year and that’s an adjustment—
Erin: Because I had a baby.
You both have been creative partners for most of your adult lives, but do obstacles in your dynamic still arise?
Sara: There’s no push-and-pull power dynamic. We both have pretty clear lanes. There’s no part of me that wants to be a writer. Erin has such an innate talent that is so specific to her. I would say she has the most important comedic voice in TV right now. She can’t say that about herself, but I can and I’m so proud of her.
Erin: Yeah, but it’s taken many years for it to fall into this natural rhythm. There’s a lot that I’m not as passionate about, like the business side of things is not as exciting to me as the creative side, but you have to have both. And it’s hard for me to have a lot of different plates spinning. I get overwhelmed. I’m good at focusing on the thing in front of me, and I think Sara’s really great at reminding us to diversify and keep the train on the tracks. The writers room monopolizes a lot of my time, so I’m really unable to be in a ton of meetings and fittings for Favorite Daughter and even development stuff for other shows. So she’s really great about being able to lead the charge on that and be understanding when I have to be in the writers room.
The annual Screen Actors Guild Awards celebrate the best acting in film and television, as voted on by SAG-AFTRA members. Along with a shiny trophy, winning a SAG Award also comes with the honor of acknowledgment and recognition of industry peers. This year, Barbie and Oppenheimer each scored four nominations, leading the film pack in terms of the most nods. For television, Succession came in hot with five nominations.
The 30th SAG Awards kick off this evening at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall in Los Angeles, California, and for the first time ever, will stream live on Netflix, starting tonight (Saturday, Feb. 24) at 8:00 pm ET. There will not be host for the ceremony, as has been the case for the past four years.
Before the main event, though, there’s the red carpet, which always delivers major memorable style moments. Below, see the best red carpet fashion from the 2024 Sag Awards.
This time of year, everyone is offering their predictions about 2024 fashion trends. My fellow Who What Wear colleagues, for instance, have weighed in with their own opinions on what will and won’t make it to the New Year. Everything is certainly subjective, but I have a strong feeling that Leighton Meester’s newest look just proved that one trend, in particular, has major staying power: rosettes.
Photographed on the red carpet at a holiday party for Freevee and Amazon Prime, Meester wore Silvia Tcherassi’s Daniela Gown ($1020), complete with a stunning 3-D floral appliqué front and center. We’ve been talking about the rosette trend all year long—remember Zendaya’s rose-festooned dress at the SAG Awards back in February? Meester’s fantastic interpretation of the trend just proved that rosettes will not be expiring in 2024. Scroll down to see her new look and shop the trend for yourself.
“Gossip Girl” tells the story of a bunch of wealthy Upper East Siders (and a few Brooklynites) as they deal with drama, romance, and chaos in the Big Apple. The show, which ran from 2007 to 2012, also happened to make much of its young cast into huge stars. Blake Lively, of course, starred as Serena van der Woodsen on “Gossip Girl” and has since gone on to be a prominent A-lister. Penn Badgley, who played the seemingly innocuous Dan Humphrey, now stars as another seemingly harmless (but very murderous) character on the hit show “You.” Meanwhile, Taylor Momsen, who played Dan’s little sister Jenny Humphrey, transitioned from television into a successful music career after leaving “Gossip Girl”; she currently fronts the band The Pretty Reckless.
Not that much time has passed since “Gossip Girl,” though the show already received a reboot that ran from 2021 to 2023. Still, in the decade since the original “Gossip Girl”‘s shocking finale, many of the show’s stars have embarked on tons of different projects, and up next, Leighton Meester, who played Blair Waldorf, is set to star in “EXmas,” a romantic comedy out Nov. 17 that seems perfect for ushering in the winter season.
Ahead, check out photos of the “Gossip Girl” cast then and now, and learn what they’ve all been up to since they left the Upper East Side behind.
It’s a match made in teen TV heaven. Leighton Meester, who played Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl, and Adam Brody, who played Seth Cohen on The O.C., were first linked back in 2011. News of their romance sent fans into a frenzy. Since then, they’ve quietly married, co-starred in a few films, and have now welcomed their second child, a son, together. Below, a rewind on their low-key love, including what they’ve said about each other’s iconic CW characters.
2011
In 2011, Brody and Meester appeared in the indie comedy The Oranges. “They were always close and friendly,” a source told Us Weeklyof the duo’s dynamic during filming.
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The Oranges Official Trailer #1 (2012) Hugh Laurie Movie HD
The co-stars reunited in September 2012 for a screening of The Oranges in NYC.
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Usreported that Meester split from her actor boyfriend Aaron Himelstein over the holidays. She had previously dated her Gossip Girl co-star Sebastian Stan. Brody had been most recently linked to Hustlers director Lorene Scafaria and dated his O.C. co-star Rachel Bilson until 2006.
February 2013
Us Weeklybroke the news that Brody and Meester were dating on February 6, 2013. The article claimed that the pair had been “hanging out” for weeks, with a trip to Bangkok at the start of the year and stop at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on February 1.
A couple days after their relationship became public, Meester hid from paparazzi in Brody’s car, per E! News. Towards the end of the month, the outlet snapped them walking to a Mexican restaurant in Venice, California.
June 2013
Brody and Meester made their first public appearance as a couple at the premiere of his film, Some Girl(s). They held hands during the outing and posed alongside Brody’s co-star Mia Maestro.
Angela Weiss//Getty Images
September 2013
Neither Meester nor Brody confirmed their 7-month relationship. But E! spotted the couple walking through NYC towards the end of the year.
November 2013
On November 20, E! reported that the couple was engaged after less than a year of dating. Neither actor weighed in on the news themselves. A month later, the pair was spotted kissing in South Africa.
February 2014
On February 18, Us Weekly confirmed that Meester and Brody had tied the knot in a secret wedding, according to multiple sources. “Leighton and Adam got married in Northern California by the ocean a couple of weeks ago,” a source told E! News. “It was a very small and intimate wedding with close family and friends. It was beautiful.”
E! hinted at a possible honeymoon spot, reporting that the couple had recently been “seen relaxing” at St. Regis Punta Mita Resort in Mexico. A few weeks prior, Meester reportedly had her bachelorette party at Hamburger Mary’s in West Hollywood.
June 2014
Meester and Brody walked their first red carpet as a married couple at the Tony Awards. She wore a white Antonio Berardi gown and he wore a dark suit with lightly-patterned tie. Meester had made her Broadway debut in March 2014, co-starring alongside James Franco and Chris O’Dowd in the play Of Mice and Men.
Kevin Mazur//Getty Images
August 2014
Brody slyly referenced his relationship with Meester during an Ask Me Anything with fans on Reddit. A fan asked Brody, “How’s Leighton?” According to Us Weeklyhe responded, “She’s swell!” He also covered how many kids he’d like: “I say twelve. And I decide,” he joked. When asked what life was like at the Brody-Meester household he replied, “I do some stuff but she definitely does the heavy lifting (figuratively),” he said of Meester. “Literally, I do the heavy lifting.”
November 2014
The married couple re-teamed onscreen in the indie comedy Life Partners, which sees the friendship between Meester and Gillian Jacobs’ characters torn apart when Jacobs begins dating a character played by Brody.
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Usconfirmed that Brody and Meester had welcomed their first child together, a daughter named Arlo Day. The new parents did not confirm that they were expecting (when rumors swirled in May), nor did they reveal the baby’s gender or name. TMZ reported that Arlo was born on August 4, per the birth certificate.
August 2016
Brody and Meester kept quiet for the next year after their daughter’s birth. However, they did step out together for the Startup premiere in Los Angeles.
Todd Williamson//Getty Images
January 2017
The couple attended the 2017 InStyle Golden Globes after party on January 8. Meester wore a white Galvan dress with cobalt-colored Sophia Webster pumps, while Brody wore a dark blue suit and tie combo.
Stefanie Keenan//Getty Images
March 2017
In an Access Hollywoodinterview, Meester mentioned she had a crush on Brody when she was younger. She said, “When his show came out, I think I was just like ‘I don’t want to watch that show, it’s a teenage show,’ even though I was sixteen but all my friends watched it.” She added, “I think maybe I thought he was cute. I remember he was a screensaver of one of my best friends when we were like seventeen. I saw it from afar. Her [screensaver] kind of changed every week, but I was like, who is that?” The actress then admitted that they were “meant to be” together.
June 2017
Later that year, the couple granted their first joint interview to Entertainment Tonight while volunteering at Feeding America’s Summer Hunger Awareness event in Los Angeles.
Araya Diaz//Getty Images
During the conversation, the couple joked that they “occasionally” talked about how their iconic teen characters had ended up together in real life. “Once a year, randomly, on our Seth and Blair day,” Brody joked. “It’s good for a laugh.” Meester added, “It doesn’t excite us, I think, because we’re just human beings … but it’s exciting to us that it’s exciting to you. It’s cool.”
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Leighton Meester and Adam Brody Totally ‘Laugh’ That Blair Waldorf and Seth Cohen Wound Up Toget…
Meester spoke to Entertainment Tonight about her and Brody’s work-life balance. “I think we’re a pretty modern couple,” the actress said. “I also think the nice thing about being an actor [is] you can work a lot, and when work is work, it’s, like, super intense and long hours and you might not see your family for a long period. But then I’ll have, like, months off at a time, so I can really be home and spend time [with Arlo], so I prefer it that way,” she said.
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How Leighton Meester and Adam Brody Balance Hollywood Careers With Parenting (Exclusive)
It would be more than a year before Meester would open up about their relationship again. In an interview with PorterEdit, she said, “I wouldn’t change anything [in the past] because I’m happy where I am now. And I think that’s one of the many wonderful parts of not only having a child and meeting your soulmate, but also, I feel really lucky career-wise, really in a place that I want to be.”
March 2019
Meester also spoke about her life as a wife and mother with Shape magazine. “I just don’t believe in balance,” she explained to the outlet. “I think that’s not possible if you’re a working mother—and with single mothers, I cannot even imagine that. Some days my husband cooks dinner and some days I do. Other days, I’m too tired and I eat a bowl of cereal for dinner. It’s just the thing we do to make it work.” She also mentioned that Brody had taught her how to surf.
That same month, the couple attended their first red carpet in more than two years. Meester was on hand to support Brody at the premiere of his new superhero flick Shazam!.
Albert L. Ortega//Getty Images
May 2019
On May 8, Brody guest-starred on the season 1 finale of Meester’s ABC comedy, Single Parents. In the episode, he plays Derek, the ex of her character, Angie.
Richard Cartwright//Getty Images
When asked about working with her husband for the third time, Meester told The Hollywood Reporter, “He’s my best friend,” adding, “I wanna work with him on everything, and I think he’s the best in everything.” Brody went on to appear in four subsequent episodes of the series—two in October 2019 and two in January 2020.
Richard Cartwright//Getty Images
July 2019
Brody and Meester made a rare public appearance at the film premiere of Ode to Joy, posing with director Jason Winer in West Hollywood.
Joe Scarnici//Getty Images
August 2019
The following month, the couple had another public date night at the premiere of Brody’s film, Ready or Not. She wore a salmon and purple belted Michael Kors dress while he opted for a black suit and plaid tie. Meester went IG official with her husband of more than five years. She captioned a shot of them at the premiere, “Me and my hero #readyornotmovie.”
Matt Winkelmeyer//Getty Images
Brody opened up about his marriage in a profile with GQ. “She’s more inherently private than I am,” he said of his wife. “I don’t seek publicity but if I’m sitting next to you on the subway, I’ll tell you everything about me.” He explained further, “We’re homebodies. We don’t go to a lot of things that perhaps we could, and don’t seek out promotion in that way. I’m not s–tting on anyone who monetizes that aspect of their life because I get it. But we’ve found this great balance so far that really works for us. We’re also not very active on social media.”
When asked about the fact that both he and Meester played beloved characters on CW teen dramas he responded, “It’s not bizarre. To be perfectly honest, it was a little embarrassing. I guess love knows no bounds?”
October 2019
Meester commemorated her husband’s return to Single Parents with a photo of him leaning against a trailer on set. “My boyfriend’s back. Tonight on #SingleParents on @abcnetwork at 9:30/8:30c,” she captioned the Instagram post.
March 2020
On March 28, Brody’s ex and former O.C. co-star Rachel Bilson referenced his marriage to Meester. InStyle posted a throwback photo of the former couple with the caption, “#rachelbilson and #adambrody’s breakup basically ruined high school for all of us.” Bilson hilariously commented, “IM SORRY! He fared really well!”
The exes also reunited in August 2019, when Brody and Bilson unexpectedly met at the airport. “Ran into my ol buddy from jfk to lax #californiaherewecome🤓,” Bilson captioned her Instagram photo of the pair.
April 2020
Us Weeklyreported that Meester and Brody were expecting their second child on April 1. The report came a day after she was spotted by the Daily Mail on a walk in Los Angeles. However, the couple didn’t publicly confirm that they were expanding their family at the time.
September 2020
Brody announced the two recently welcomed their second child while making an appearance on Twitch show The Fun Time Boys Game Night Spectacular,per The Sun. When a fellow participant remarked, “Adam, you have a new baby,” he casually confirmed the news. “I have a new—yeah, since last I played I have a new kid,” Brody said, revealing the baby’s gender. “I have a boy and he’s a dream, he’s a dream boy.”
October 2020
The following month, the Shazam! actor opened up to People about the welcoming of his son. “It’s been pretty magical,” Brody said. “It’s such a crazy time for everyone, and we’re so, so, so fortunate that we have some of the security we do and have the flexibility with our jobs we do. We talk about it all the time, and we’re just ridiculously fortunate and lucky.”
December 2020
In a Wall Street Journal interview, Brody opened up his experience quarantining with his family. “A big part of our quarantine life is that my wife and I have been surfing our brains out,” he said, via Style Rave. “My wife will come down with our son half an hour, 45 minutes after I’m up and join the party, and we will check the surf on our phones. I’ve been off and on a lifetime surfer. My wife’s relatively new to it but is very dedicated,” Brody said. He later mentioned how Meester helped changed his life during the pandemic. “I was on Twitter so much up until the election, and I enjoy it, I really do, but it’s very addicting. I found myself, as most people, just so pissed off for most of this year and was really happy for about 48 hours after the election and then 48 hours after [that], I was so pissed again. So my wife put a 30-minute time limit on Twitter, and my life has changed.” Brody added, “I’m back to reading books, and I felt my blood pressure lower instantly—I feel a new sense of calm and accomplishment.”
March 2021
Brody opened up about his relationship with Meester on Anna Faris’ Unqualified podcast. He mentioned, per E!, his first initial meeting Meester was through Josh Schwartz, who produced Gossip Girl and The O.C. “Literally the first time we met, that whole cast [Gossip Girl] was eating at Canter’s [restaurant], and I lived at Canter’s for like my entire 20s. And I was leaving, and [John Schwartz] introduced all of us,” Brody said. As the pair filmed Oranges in 2011, Brody explained he had a girlfriend at the time but still found Meester attractive. “I thought she was gorgeous. And even when we did the movie, there was chemistry there, but I was seeing someone,” he said.
He went on mentioned his first initial thoughts about Meester, following their first date later. “I had no idea whether she was a good person or not. And, in fact, kind of assumed she probably wasn’t for like the first handful of years that I didn’t know her, just because, I don’t know, Gossip Girl,” he said.
Later in the interview, Brody shared his admiration for his wife of seven years. “She’s literally like Joan of Arc. She is, like, the strongest, best person I know. She is my moral compass and North Star, and I just can’t say enough good things about her character. It’s crazy.”
April 2021
The following month, Brody was interviewed for the Kelly Clarkson Show. The O.C. actor spoke about his new movie, The Kid Detective, and how having a daughter changed his perspective. “One of the things that’s been interesting and that I am happy to use and implement with my son now is all the female-centric stories, movies, and myths that I’ve seen now that I didn’t get to grow up with,” Brody said. “I am happy to have this whole other catalog of stories to show my son as well,” he added.
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March 2023
Brody offered a little inside into the early days of their marriage while on the March 8, 2023, episode of SiriusXM Radio’s The Jess Cagle Show.
“I was never scared of the idea of marriage or kids,” Brody said. “It always seemed like a route I would go eventually, and I was excited…when it came together, when I met the right person.”
He knew that Meester was the right person very soon after they got together.
“My wife and I actually got married very fast after we started dating,” Brody explained. “That’s how sort of easy a decision it was for me and us.”
Editorial Fellow
Savannah Walsh is an Editorial Fellow at ELLE.com.
Starr Savoy is a fellow at ELLE.com, where she writes about celebrity, culture, beauty, and fashion. When she is not working, you will find her pumping iron at the gym, watching Netflix’s latest phenomenon, and indulging in retail therapy.
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