Adam Brody leaves fans in tears over emotional tribute to wife Leighton Meester: ‘I need a minute’
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Adam Brody brought fans to tears as he delivered a sweet tribute to his wife Leighton Meester after winning a Critics Choice Award.
The OC actor won Best Actor in Comedy Series for his role as “hot rabbi” Noah Roklov in the Netflix series Nobody Wants This, which he starred in alongside Kristen Bell.
After Brody’s name was called out as the winner on Friday (7 February), he turned to kiss his wife, Gossip Girl star Meester.
Brody choked up as he mentioned Meester onstage, saying: “My darling, darling, darling wife. Thank you for sharing this life with me and this journey with me. Thank you for our family. Love you with all my heart. Thank you so much.”
The camera panned to Meester, who had tears in her eyes and blew a kiss in Brody’s direction.
In another moment captured by an onlooker, the pair embraced and shared a passionate kiss after Brody’s win.
“I know love is real because of Leighton Meester and Adam Brody,” said one fan in X/Twitter.
“I need a minute,” said one person, as another added: “Their love feels like something straight out of a rom-com. Manifesting this energy in my life.”
Another joked that the speech was “for Gossip Girl and Gilmore Girls people”, since both of them starred in cult 2000s series, with Brody playing Dave Rygalski in season three of Gilmore Girls.
“She found her real life Dan Humphrey,” said another, referring to one of Blair Waldorf’s love interests in Gossip Girl.
Brody’s win comes just weeks after the couple lost their Pacific Palisades home to the devastating wildfires that took over Los Angeles last month and displaced 80,000 residents.
Elsewhere during his speech, Brody joked that his trophy was a Hanukkah present for his co-star Bell.
“Thank you for your talent. Thank you for your kindness. Thank you for your belief in me. This is a Hanukkah present for you,” Brody addressed Bell, gesturing to his trophy.
Meester and Brody married in 2014 before welcoming their first child, Arlo, in 2015. They welcomed their second child, a baby boy, in 2020.
Brody has previously admitted that he was “smitten instantly” the first time he met Meester in a deli in Los Angeles.
“That’s when I saw her, and, yeah I was smitten instantly. And I was, you know, smitten for a long time,” he said. “I didn’t get to know her for many years after, even though we even worked together briefly.”
He said that initially, Meester was “elusive” and “aloof” and that he couldn’t tell how she felt about him.
“I couldn’t get a total read because even though she professes to have been interested in me and all those things, not only did she not pursue that, I mean, she was perfectly willing to let that never happen,” he explained.
He joked that there were “many false starts” to their relationship and that Meester was “perfectly willing to let that message in the bottle return to sea at several points”.
