Patrick Stewart Spoke of a ‘Practically Non-Existent’ Bond With His Children Before His Death

Patrick Stewart, the actor known to generations as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, died Wednesday at his Los Angeles home at age 86 following a brief battle with Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia. He was with his wife, Sunny Ozell, at the time of his death.

A social media statement announcing his death described him as “held in the warm embrace of family and friends, surrounded by live music, prayer, tears, laughter, and the kind of profound emotion that only he could inspire after a lifetime of devotion to us all.”

But in an October 2023 interview with the Irish Independent, Stewart had offered a far more painful reflection on his private life, describing his relationship with his two adult children as “practically non-existent” and saying the estrangement caused him “significant grief.”

“There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not pained by the memory of my children, who they were and by a sense of responsibility that they became who they are in part because of me and my influence or lack of influence on them,” Stewart said in that interview.

He went further, telling the Independent plainly: “I always put my acting work first, before my family.”

Stewart shared his son, Daniel, now 58, and daughter, Sophie, now 54, with his first wife, Sheila Falconer. The two married in 1966 and divorced in 1990.

Asked in the 2023 interview whether his portrayal of the wise, steady Captain Picard reflected the father he wished he’d had, Stewart turned the question back on himself.

“I think it might have been more the one I wished I was,” he said.

He acknowledged the strain had only deepened with time. “Given that I’m separated from my children now, we don’t have relationships, they have become very important,” he said. “I never thought that this would happen, but both my children are in their 50s, they’re not children anymore, they’re adults. And my relationship with them is practically non-existent.”

It was not the first time Stewart had spoken publicly about the toll his career took on his family. In a 2009 interview, also with the Independent, he said he “could’ve done better as a parent, when [his] kids were little,” explaining, “I was just obsessed with my work and everything else took second place.” At that time he said he was “trying to correct that now whenever possible” with his grandchildren, and that his children “seem to have forgiven me.”

Representatives for Sophie and Daniel Stewart did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Page Six, which first reported the actor’s earlier remarks following his death.

After his divorce from Falconer, Stewart married Wendy Neuss in 2000; that marriage ended three years later. He married Sunny Ozell, his third wife, in 2013.

Just months before his death, Stewart addressed the shrinking opportunities that come with age in the acting profession, telling TV Insider in July that “there are fewer and fewer available roles as we get older.” Even so, he said he continued “to receive interesting offers” and loved “being challenged by new work.”

“I can’t imagine ever officially ‘retiring,'” he told the outlet. “I’ll always and forever be an actor.”