It’s hard to imagine a time when Broadway star Sutton Foster would open up to now-disgraced influencer Hilaria Baldwin about her efforts to keep her marriage going before revealing that her next big project was to co-star with Hugh Jackman in a Broadway revival of “The Music Man.”
But that’s what happened in 2019. Foster went on Baldwin’s since-shuttered Mom Brain podcast. For the star of the 2024-2025 Broadway revival of “Once Upon a Mattress,” Foster was, once upon a time, happily married — or seemed to be happly married — to screenwriter Ted Griffin. And Foster and Griffin had an adorable adopted daughter, two cute little dogs, Mabel and Brody, and a picturesque home in the country where she and her little girl would plant flowers.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 12: Sutton Foster and Ted Griffin attend the 75th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on June 12, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Jenny Anderson/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions )
As Foster chronicled her happy family life on Instagram through 2023, the two-time Tony Award winner and star of the TV Land comedy “Younger” also opened up to Hilaria Baldwin and her co-host Daphne Oz about how she tried to get pregnant via IVF in her early 40s. When that didn’t work, she and Griffin worked with a lawyer to arrange an open adoption, which she said went pretty smoothly. But as new parents, Foster admitted that her marriage almost broke apart. Near the end of the interview, though, Foster certainly brightened up when mentioning that her next big project was to work with Jackman.
The mention of the handsome Australian movie star prompted sighs of approval and “oh, him!” from Baldwin and Oz. Celebrity world now knows that the family life that Foster, 56, celebrated in this podcast and on Instagram would soon come to an end. She and Griffin filed for divorce in October 2024 after she became romantically involved with Jackman, either during or after the 2022-2023 run of “The Music Man.”
Foster and Jackman have tried to keep a low profile since news of their romance burst onto the scene “with white-hot intensity” in the fall of 2024, as The Cut said. Both are going through respective divorces — he from his wife of 27 years, Deborra-lee Furness. But Foster and Jackman emerged in public together this past week. People magazine photographed them on the streets of New York City, holding hands while taking a walk, to show that they are still a couple and still seem happy.
Unfortunately for Foster, her “perky,” upbeat reputation has taken a hit, judging by the negative comments that pop on her old Instagram posts that feature photos of her with Griffin, or of them with their daughter, now 7. For example, for a January 2023 carousel of family photos of Foster, Griffin and their daughter visiting Disneyland, someone wrote, “He must’ve been shocked when you dumped him for Hugh I hope he finds a nice and honest lady.”
In other posts, people call her a “cheater” or express sympathy for their daughter. There’s also a Reddit thread asking, “Can someone explain the Sutton Foster hate,” which actually focuses on her professional abilities. Some people online speculate that the seven-time Tony nominee was among the list of recent notable “snubs” for the 2025 Tony nominations, for her performance in “Once Upon a Mattress,” because of the “scandal” surrounding her romance with Jackman.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – FEBRUARY 14: (L-R) Alec Baldwin and Hilaria Baldwin attend SNL50: The Homecoming Concert at Radio City Music Hall on February 14, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)
If there’s any consolation for Foster, it’s that her reputation hasn’t suffered the same collapse as Hilaria Baldwin, the wife of acclaimed but long-polarizing film and TV actor Alec Baldwin. A year after Foster, Baldwin and Oz recorded this podcast episode, Hilaria Baldwin became engulfed in her own scandal when people online alleged that she had faked being a Spanish immigrant for more than a decade to appear more glamorous and interesting. Curiously, Hilaria Baldwin didn’t speak with a Spanish accent in her “Mom Brain” chat with Foster, as she’s been known to do in other podcast or TV interviews.
But Hilaria Baldwin’s Spanish identity scandal led to the end of her Mom Brain podcast with Oz, the daughter of former TV doctor Mehmet Oz-turned Trump-supporting administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Hilaria and Alec Baldwin have launched maligned new careers in reality TV after he became mired in legal drama over his accidental 2021 killing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the western film “Rust.”
For a while, Hilaria Baldwin’s Mom Brain podcast seemed pretty popular and booked other famous mothers as guests, including Jennifer Garner, or leading experts to discuss parenting topics. Foster came on the show in November 2019 to talk about her effort to become pregnant in her early 40s, while also juggling a busy career, acting, singing and dancing on Broadway.
NEW YORK, NY – MARCH 17: (L-R) Ted Griffin, Peter Hermann, Sutton Foster and Mariska Hargitay attend the book launch party for Peter Hermann’s “If The S in Moose Comes Loose” at Books of Wonder on March 17, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for HarperCollins Publishers)
Foster told Baldwin and Oz that she had a “total breakdown” after her second round of IVF didn’t lead to a pregnancy, so she told Griffin they also had to pursue adoption because it “can’t all fall on her shoulders.” She said it was “amazing” when their daughter was born but there was a “big learning curve” in being a new parent and in trying to figure out how she and Griffin were going to navigate this new stage of their relationship.
“No one really prepared me that it breaks your marriage apart,” she said.
When asked how she and Griffin worked to keep their relationship “open and vulnerable with each other,” Foster said, “With us, it’s like you’re choosing your battles, not picking on every (issue) because I can be such a control freak, and I try to control every little thing, and I want to over-talk and over-analyze stuff. It was like letting things go.”
“That’s what I realized sometimes, that it’s OK letting (the marriage) be, like, a 10 today, or a zero,” she said. “Or, if it’s a good solid six, that’s OK too.”
Production on “The Music Man” with Jackman was delayed until the spring of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the next year, Foster posted multiple photos of her and Jackman in rehearsals or promoting the show. But she also shared photos of her with Griffin, writing in May 2020, “I’m stuck on you” and in December 2021, “Love this man.” She moreover posted photos of her, Griffin and their daughter, including the three of them wearing funny homemade hats to celebrate New Year’s Eve in 2021.
“The Music Man” opened in February 2022, with Foster and Jackman gushing about each other on social media, according to Vulture. “You’re an exceptional talent and friend,” Jackman wrote about Foster. “Your joy brings the company of @MusicManBway to life.” Meanwhile, Foster said it was “a dream to be dancing with Hugh every night.”
Foster also famously revealed in a 2022 appearance on “Live with Kelly and Ryan” that she and Jackman had developed a close bond during the production, which she said included a pre-performance ritual that took place when they were alone in her dressing room.
“We call it carpet chat,” Foster revealed. “We hang out in my dressing room before every show and just catch up.”
“It’s such a wonderful thing,” Foster continued. “We’ve become really good friends and we just talk and catch up on our day. That’s been one of the best parts of the whole thing, that I’ve made this wonderful new friend.”
The world now knows that Foster and Jackman became more than friends. On Instagram, she stopped posting photos of her husband in January 2023, and she began posting far fewer photos of her daughter and of their two small dogs. She posed with a different small dog on a beach in a September 2023 photo.
Jackman’s estranged wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, developed “suspicions” about them working together. The longtime Hollywood power couple announced their separation in October 2023, nine months after “The Music Man” closed.
