Andie MacDowell’s 3 Children: All About Justin, Rainey and Margaret Qualley

Andie Macdowell’s children are the joy of her life.

The Groundhog Day star is mom to three kids: daughters Margaret Qualley and Rainey Qualley, both of whom have followed in her acting footsteps, and son Justin Qualley.

Macdowell welcomed her children with her ex-husband, Paul Qualley, a former model and rancher. They wed in 1986 and were married for 13 years before divorcing in 1999.

“My kids were always my priority and being a mother was the most important aspect of my life,” the Four Weddings and a Funeral actress told Interview Magazine in 2021. “But I was competitive and I did want to work, so I was always balancing both of those aspects of my life.”

Macdowell raised her children in Montana and North Carolina, with Margaret telling the U.K.’s Evening Standard that her mom was “probably the only Hollywood actress” in their Southern city of Asheville.

“I grew up always being like, “Well, it’s just normal to me, she’s my mom, so it’s my normal life. But also I knew it was weird,” she said.

Margaret is an accomplished actress in her own right. She rose to fame on HBO’s The Leftovers and is best known for her critically acclaimed roles in FX’s Fosse/Verdon and Netflix’s Maid, in which she costarred alongside her mom.

Margaret Qualley Stars Opposite Her Real-Life Mother Andie MacDowell in Trailer for Netflix’s ‘Maid’

“That’s a really special thing to happen to a parent, to have a child trust them and to want them to play opposite them,” MacDowell told NPR in 2021.

While Justin has stayed out of the spotlight, Rainey is also an actress as well as a model and singer who performs under the name Rainsford. While both of her girls “really wanted to do it on their own,” Macdowell has still given them career advice.

“Mostly, I told them that fame is a huge responsibility,” the Ready or Not actress told PEOPLE in 2017. “And it’s not always easy to be recognizable all the time. It’s not really real. And to not lose sight of their true self because that’s going to be most important to being happy.”

Macdowell’s three children are all grown up and successful in their own right, and she is now a first-time grandmother after Justin welcomed his first child in 2022. She wrote on Instagram that her “children are the best part of my life” and “my greatest teachers,” admitting to PEOPLE in 2019 that she didn’t have the easiest time becoming an empty nester.

“Once they’re older, you then have to learn to let go. I’ve done my job and I’ve done my job well because my kids are all making their own choices for themselves and developing into the people that they’re supposed to be,” she said. “The most important thing that you will teach your children is to be independent.”

Here’s everything to know about Andie MacDowell’s children, daughters Margaret and Rainey Qualley and son Justin Qualley.

Justin Qualley, 37

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Macdowell and then-husband Paul Qualley welcomed their first child, son Justin Qualley, on Aug. 14, 1986.

In honor of Justin’s 35th birthday, Macdowell shared some insight into becoming pregnant as a young model in New York who was struggling to break into the acting business, calling it the “greatest blessing of my life.”

“I remember holding him in my arms and walking around the room looking at him and saying to myself ‘I am a mother,’” she wrote on Instagram in 2021. “Everything changed about who I was in that moment because I no longer cared about anything like I cared about him.”

“Being a mother was a priority to me,” she added. “I definitely wanted to have a successful career but I did not want it to be at the cost of not having the opportunity to have a family. This was back in the days when we called this for women ‘having it all.’ As if we were being greedy to want to be able to have a career and have children. I made it work and he was the magic I needed, the love that filled me up along with my other children to give me the courage to be all I could be.”

Justin lives in Montana, where he largely grew up before his parents split — Macdowell and Qualley finalized their divorce in 1999 — and works as a real estate agent in the western part of the state.

Andie MacDowell Instagram

In June 2022, Macdowell penned a sweet Instagram post that served as a tribute to her son and an announcement that the couple, who wed in June 2023, were expecting their first child together. She shared a photo of Justin and a pregnant Nicolette, writing in the caption that her son and daughter-in-law are “down to earth in every way.”

Andie MacDowell Is a First-Time Grandma After Son Justin Welcomes Baby Girl

“They are always there for their friends and family. Pure goodness in the coolest way! Montana provides the perfect home for them and the quiet solitude they deserve,” Macdowell wrote in part. “ … My son never looks at his phone, he does not live a life online. He has been a blessing and a gift to me from the very beginning. The best thing that ever happened to me.”

Though Justin’s daughter, Cozette’s, exact birth date wasn’t announced, Macdowell did share the happy news that she was a first-time grandparent on the Today show in January 2023, noting that she had spent Christmas with the newborn.

“I’ve never had somebody look into me and see my soul like that. It was definitely a soul-to-soul connection,” the actress said of her granddaughter, whom she hopes will call her “Nana” or “Grandma” but will leave the decision up to Cozette.

Unlike his younger sisters, Justin has stayed out of the spotlight, but he has accompanied his mom to public events like the 2022 National Women’s History Museum’s 8th Annual Women Making History Awards, where Macdowell was an honoree.

Rainey Qualley, 33

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Macdowell gave birth to her and Qualley’s first daughter, Rainey Qualley, on March 11, 1990. Rainey grew up in Montana and split time between there and North Carolina after her parent’s divorce.

Rainey was a Miss Golden Globe in 2012, the same year she made her acting debut in the film Mighty Fine, in which she starred opposite her mother. She went on to star in 2014’s Falcon Song and 2018’s Perfect, appeared in a 2015 episode of Mad Men, made a cameo as herself in 2018’s Ocean’s 8 and was a lead in the 2020 Freeform limited series Love in the Time of Corona. In November 2022, Deadline announced she would costar with Party Down’s Ryan Hansen in The Whisper Network.

The multi-hyphenate is also a model who’s worked with Louis Vuitton, Bulgari and Gucci, as well as a singer-songwriter, releasing music under the name Rainsford. She has dropped three EPs — 2015’s Turn Down the Lights, 2018’s Emotional Support Animal and 2023’s So that was my dream — dueted with Norwegian pop singer Anna From the North on the single “Brutal,” and appeared on two songs with Twin Shadow.

She has also collaborated with her model friends in her creative work — the music video for Rainsford’s single “Crying in the Mirror” starred Kaia Gerber and Margaret and was directed by Cara Delevingne, and Margaret also costarred with Shia LaBeouf in an NSFW music video for Rainey’s “Love Me Like You Hate Me.”

Rainey told Spin in 2022 that she was prepping for a debut album, saying, “A lot of the music that I have put out so far has been very ‘sad girl.’ I wrote a lot of songs in heartache and that felt really important — and it was at the time — but I want to write stuff that comes from a more joyful place. I’m also just happier now.”

Mike Coppola/Getty

Andie MacDowell Brings Daughter Rainey Qualley to Oscars 2023 — See the Sweet Photo!

Rainey has made a number of red-carpet appearances, including front-row seats at fashion shows for houses like Cushnie, Dsquared2 and Marc Cain. In 2023, she was her mom’s Oscars date.

In addition to acting and singing, Rainey is an activist, as is her younger sister. In 2022, the middle Qualley sibling starred in a PETA campaign speaking out against SeaWorld. The dog and cat mom fosters stray kittens and regularly promotes supporting animal shelters on social media.

In September 2020, she began dating Lewis Pullman, son of actor Bill Pullman. The duo made their red carpet debut at the May 2022 premiere of his movie, Top Gun: Maverick, in San Diego.

Margaret Qualley, 28

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Macdowell and Qualley’s second daughter and youngest child, Margaret Qualley, was born on October 23, 1994, in Montana. Her parents divorced when she was five, and she moved with her mom and siblings to Asheville, splitting time between her parents’ homes (her dad lived in Montana, where she spent the first few years of her life).

Growing up in North Carolina as a “goofy kid,” as Margaret described herself to Harper’s Bazaar, she didn’t have aspirations to become an actress but rather “dreamed that one day I would be like my older sister.” (Rainey is five years her senior, while brother Justin is seven years older.) She admitted to Evening Standard that she had a “weird” and “lucky” childhood experience.

“It was a strange thing but then I did go to a normal school, [had] normal friends, and have a somewhat normal life,” she explained. “Then my mom would go off and do movies and sometimes I’d go with her and sometimes I’d meet, like, Gérard Depardieu.”

She danced at boarding school before moving to New York City at age 16 to study at the American Ballet Theatre, an experience that helped prepare her for her role in 2019’s Fosse/Verdon. She tried modeling but quit after four months, telling AnOther magazine that she “realized it wasn’t good for me.” She has since starred in plenty of campaigns, however, including for Chanel and KENZO.

Margaret Qualley Stars with Shia LaBeouf in NSFW Music Video — Which Mom Andie MacDowell Calls ‘Stunning’

Margaret first went to an acting class with her then-boyfriend, actor Nat Wolff, and scored her first role in 2013’s Palo Alto. She rose to fame on HBO’s The Leftovers (2014-2017) and went on to act in 2017’s Death Note, 2019’s Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood and 2020’s My Salinger Year. She stars in the 2022 adaption The Stars at Noon, 2023’s Sanctuary and the upcoming Poor Things.

Michael Kovac/Getty

Her most critically-acclaimed role so far came in 2021 when she played the lead in Netflix’s limited series, Maid. She was nominated for an Emmy for the role, as well as for Fosse/Verdon. Margaret was not a producer on Maid, but she was the one who suggested Macdowell to play the role of her on-screen mother.

“I got to work with somebody that I’ve grown up admiring since the fricking get-go — my very first idol,” Margaret told The Hollywood Reporter, noting they hung out every Sunday (her only day off) while filming.

After first sparking romance rumors in 2021, a source confirmed to PEOPLE in May 2022 that Margaret was engaged to Bleachers frontman Jack Antonoff. The Seberg actress previously dated Wolff, Pete Davidson and Shia LaBeouf, while Antonoff was in a long-term relationship with Lena Dunham.

“I’ve always dreamt of getting married. There’s a girly-girl part of me that’s thought about what my wedding would be like,” she told Harper’s Bazaar in 2021. “And I’ve dreamt of having kids. I’m a real romantic in that way.”

On Aug. 19, 2023, Margaret and Antonoff tied the knot in a star-studded ceremony in New Jersey. The nuptials were attended by guests including Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Channing Tatum and Zoë Kravitz.

MacDowell was also seen celebrating her youngest child’s wedding, wearing a blue and green floral-print maxi dress, along with Rainey and Justin.

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Source: HIS Education