Honest about his ups and downs. Jason Ritter has celebrated his triumphs and been candid about his shortcomings over the years.
During a March 2023 appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, the Raise Your Voice actor moved his wife, Melanie Lynskey, to tears by opening up about how his struggles with alcoholism affected the early stages of their romance.
“I knew how incredible Melanie was early on,” the Joan of Arcadia alum told host Drew Barrymore when she asked about the moment he knew the Last of Us actress was The One. “But it’s not as cute of a story as you would like to think. It was messy and interesting and weird. But mixed in [with] the mix was — I was dealing with some alcoholism issues.”
The California native explained that he didn’t feel like he “deserved” Lynskey during their initial courtship. But after giving up alcohol in late 2013, he began to reexamine his potential to be a good partner.
“It was only after maybe a year into not drinking where I started to go, ‘Oh, maybe I can promise some things to someone else. Maybe I can be this person,’” he shared, getting emotional. “I knew that she was incredible. It was working on myself enough to feel like maybe I could be The One for her too.”
Ritter and the Togetherness alum got engaged in 2017 before spontaneously tying the knot on their front porch in 2020. The duo welcomed their daughter, whose name has not been publicly revealed, in 2018.
The You’re Not You actor shared a glimpse into how fatherhood had transformed him on his first Father’s Day in June 2019.
“I’m putting this here as a record of my gratitude to my daughter who is making this the best #FathersDay in quite a while and to @melanielynskey who has changed my life forever in the best way. I’m so lucky to have you both in my life,” he wrote via Twitter at the time.
The New York University alum lost his own father, actor John Ritter, when the Three’s Company alum died suddenly of aortic dissection in 2003. He was 54.
During an August 2020 conversation with ET Canada, Jason revealed the “main thing” he learned from his parents that he continues to pass down to his daughter.
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“A huge thing from my dad and mom [Nancy Morgan] is how they always made sure we knew we were loved,” he shared. “They said it a million times. You can pass all kinds of stuff onto your kids, but the feeling of being loved, unconditionally, is so important — knowing you can mess up or fail and they’ll never go, ‘Well, we loved you until that moment. Too bad!’”
Keep scrolling to see Ritter’s ups and downs over the years:
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