Andie MacDowell’s Family Guide: Meet the Actress’ Ex-Husbands and 3 Kids

Andie MacDowell might not have come from a famous family herself, but she’s brought up quite the Hollywood brood.

The legendary actress is a mom of three. While her two daughters eventually joined the family business, MacDowell did not allow any of her kids to become child stars.

“The only thing I didn’t want to have them do is work as children. I didn’t do that,” MacDowell said during a March 2024 interview with New Beauty. “And it can be fine. Parents can make that decision however they want to, but I felt like my kids deserved to have a childhood and not to work. I felt strongly that I didn’t want them to work as children.”

Daughters Rainey and Margaret Qualley followed their mom’s footsteps into the acting world as adults, and MacDowell has been nothing but supportive.

“I was honored [when they became actors], because it meant that I didn’t do anything that was destructive to their lives,” MacDowell said during the same interview. “It meant that I had been a good mother because they would choose to do the same thing I had done.”

MacDowell is now an empty nester who moved to South Carolina.

“I’m happier now than I have been in a long time,” she said during a January 2025 appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show after detailing her piriformis syndrome diagnosis.

Keep scrolling for MacDowell’s family guide:

Pauline Johnston

MacDowell’s mother died of a heart attack in 1981 when the actress was 23. MacDowell has spoken candidly about Johnston’s struggles with alcohol, which came after a schizophrenia diagnosis.

While speaking on NPR in 2021, MacDowell said she thinks her mother was misdiagnosed with the illness in the late 1950s.

“It was shortly after I was born, so it could have been hormones involved. But they gave her shock treatments, and she was sent away for about three months to a place in Asheville, [North Carolina],” McDowell recalled. “But when she came back … she became an alcoholic.”

MacDowell’s parents divorced when she was a child, but she referred to her father as a “beautiful man.”

She also detailed growing up in the house with Johnston and four sisters. “I was the codependent just wanting to keep the peace,” she said.

Paul Qualley

The actress was married to her first husband, Paul, for 13 years. They tied the knot in 1986 and welcomed three kids: son Justin and daughters Rainey and Margaret. MacDowell split from Paul in 1999.

She later shared in a 2002 interview that their split happened “for the usual reasons, nothing to do with my job.”

Justin Qualley

MacDowell’s first child was born in August 1986. Her son did not join the entertainment industry, instead staying out of the spotlight and starting a successful real estate career.

He and his wife, Nicolette, welcomed a child in 2022 and got married the following year.

Rainey Qualley

Born in March 1989, Rainey decided to follow in her mom’s footsteps by kicking off a career in the entertainment industry. While she has several film roles under her belt, Rainey also releases music under her full name, Rainsford.

She and partner Anthony Wilson welcomed their first child, Bluebell Coyote, in December 2024.

Margaret Qualley

MacDowell welcomed her youngest daughter in October 1994. Margaret has become a star in her own right after making her debut in the 2013 movie Palo Alto. Over the years, she has also appeared in films such as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Poor Things and The Substance, among others.

She married musician Jack Antonoff in August 2023.

Rhett Hartzog

MacDowell reconnected with her Gaffney High School classmate Hartzog in 1999. They married in a November 2001 ceremony and were together for nearly three years before she filed for divorce in 2004.