Who is Brad Falchuk’s ex-wife? All we know as Gwyneth Paltrow makes rare comment about stepdaughter

Gwyneth Paltrow has made a rare comment about her role as stepmother to Brad Falchuk’s children.

According to The Daily Mail, the actress wished Falchuk’s daughter Isabella on her 21st birthday with a heartfelt post on Instagram.

“Happy Birthday my snizzle,” Paltrow wrote on her Stories, alongside a recent photo of Isabella.

She added,

“You have taught me so much about love. I am lucky to be your stepmom.”

Gwyneth Paltrow became part of Isabella and her younger brother Brody’s lives when she married Brad Falchuk in 2018. The television writer and director shares both children with his former wife, Suzanne Bukinik, whom he divorced in 2013 after two decades together.

As The Mirror reported, Brad Falchuk first met Suzanne Bukinik in 2001 while they were both building their careers in Los Angeles. Bukinik, who had moved west from the Bronx, already had credits to her name, including producing the 2000s sitcom, According to Jim.

The couple married in 2003, welcomed two children, and watched their careers grow. Falchuk gained fame after he co-created American Horror Story and later Glee. It was during the latter series that Falchuk crossed paths with Paltrow, who guest-starred on the hit show.

Gwyneth Paltrow opened up about her learning curve as a stepmom to Brad Falchuk’s children:

In March 2024, Gwyneth Paltrow had reflected on the challenges and growth that came with being a stepmother to Brad Falchuk’s two children. According to People Magazine, speaking at the Visionary Women’s International Women’s Day Summit, she asked the audience if anyone else was a stepmother.

When hands went up, she responded,

“Yeah, it’s a b---h, right, guys?”

Paltrow went on to explain that becoming a stepparent had been one of her greatest personal lessons.

“My area of growth personally came from the initial difficult relationship I had with my stepkids, and now they’re like my kids,” she said. She admitted the journey had been “really rough,” adding, “it’s almost like you have to embody the spirit of the sun and just give and not expect anything back. I just learned to try to just keep shining like the sun and never keeping score.”

Her comments echoed what she had shared two years earlier on her “Goop” podcast in September 2022, when she spoke candidly with Brad Falchuk about her early struggles as a stepparent.

“There’s just no playbook for how to do it and nobody says, ‘Hey, you’re going to be a stepmother,’” she said.

She noted how cultural tropes made the role even harder:

“There’s this archetypal evil stepmother and this inference that ... it’s going to be this fraught thing," she explained.

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Paltrow admitted her perspective shifted once she decided to fully embrace Brad Falchuk's children as her own.

“F**k it, these are my kids. I’m not going to be scared to discipline them or draw the boundary, that’s really what shifted everything,” she explained.

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