Dennis Quaid

Quaid has been married four times and has three children.

Quaid met his first wife, actress P. J. Soles, on the set of the film Our Winning Season.[16] They were married in 1978. The couple divorced in 1983.[17]

On February 14, 1991, Quaid married actress Meg Ryan. Quaid and Ryan fell in love during the shooting of their second film together, D.O.A.[18] Quaid and Ryan have a son, Jack Henry Quaid (born April 24, 1992).[19] Quaid and Ryan announced their separation on June 28, 2000, saying they had been separated six weeks by then.[18] Their divorce was finalized in July 2001.[20]

Quaid dated model Shanna Moakler from February 2001 to October 2001.[21][22]

Quaid married Texas real-estate agent Kimberly Buffington, on July 4, 2004, at his ranch in Paradise Valley, Montana.[23] They have fraternal twins who were born via a surrogate on November 8, 2007, in Santa Monica, California.[24][25]

On November 18, 2007, hospital staff mistakenly gave Quaid's ten-day-old twins a dosage of heparin (a blood thinner) that was 1,000 times the common dosage for infants.[26][27] The babies recovered, but Quaid filed a lawsuit against the drug manufacturer, Baxter Healthcare, claiming that packaging for the two doses of heparin are not different enough.[28] In May 2008, the Quaids testified before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, asking U.S. Congress not to preempt the right to sue drug manufacturers for negligence under state law.[29] This incident led Quaid to become a patient-safety advocate, producing a series of documentaries on preventable medical errors that aired on the Discovery Channel[30][31] as well as co-authoring a medical journal article addressing the positive influence of patient stories in motivating change in healthcare.[32] The first documentary, Chasing Zero: Winning the War on Healthcare Harm, aired on the Discovery Channel in 2010,[30][31] and the second documentary, Surfing the Healthcare Tsunami: Bring Your Best Board, aired on the Discovery Channel in 2012.[33][34][35][36]

Buffington filed for divorce from Quaid in March 2012.[37] Buffington's attorney then withdrew the divorce papers on April 26, 2012.[38] In the summer of 2012, Quaid and Buffington moved to California.[39] In October 2012, Quaid and Buffington again decided to separate, and Buffington filed for legal separation, seeking joint legal and sole physical custody of the twins.[40] After waiting to establish the required six months of residency in California, Quaid filed for divorce on November 30, 2012, asking for joint legal and physical custody of the children and offering to pay spousal support to Buffington.[39] They then reconciled and the divorce was dismissed by September 2013.[41] On June 28, 2016, the couple announced in a joint statement that they were divorcing, with Buffington asking for full physical custody and joint legal custody.[42] The divorce was finalized on April 27, 2018.

Following his separation from Buffington, Quaid dated model Santa Auzina from July 2016 to 2019.[43][44][45]

On October 21, 2019, Quaid confirmed his engagement to Laura Savoie.[46] After postponing their original wedding date due to the COVID-19 pandemic,[15] they married on June 2, 2020, in Santa Barbara.[47]

Quaid is a Christian, writing the Christian song "On My Way to Heaven" dedicated to his mother and included in the film I Can Only Imagine, in which he starred.[48]

In addition to acting, Quaid is a musician and plays with his band, the Sharks. He wrote and performed the song "Closer to You" in the film The Big Easy (1987). Quaid also has a pilot's license and owned a Cessna Citation.[49] He is also a one-handicap golfer, and in 2005, he was named as the top golfer among the "Hollywood set" by Golf Digest magazine.

Quaid is a fan of the Houston Astros, and after the team's 2005 National League Championship-winning season, he narrated their commemorative DVD release. After the filming of The Express: The Ernie Davis Story, Quaid went to Cleveland Browns Stadium to dedicate Davis's jersey.

Quaid began podcasting during 2020. He started The Pet Show with Dennis Quaid and Jimmy Jellinek. Its first episode premiered on July 10, 2020.[50] During that podcast, he learned of a cat in Lynchburg, Virginia also named Dennis Quaid.[51] He adopted the cat and flew it out to California to live at his recording studio.[52]

There have been extensive stories about Quaid's past abuse of cocaine. In a candid 2002 interview with Larry King on his talk show, after King asked about his motives for using drugs, Quaid responded, "Well, you got to put it in context. Back in the late 1960s, early 1970s. That was back during the time where, you know, drugs were going to expand our minds and everybody was experimenting and everything. We were really getting high, we didn't know it. And cocaine at that time was considered harmless. You know. I remember magazine articles in People Magazine of doctors saying it is not addicting. It is just—alcohol is worse. So I think we all fell into that. But that's not the way it was." When asked if he believed he had ever been addicted to the drugs, he responded, "It was a gradual thing. But it got to the point where I couldn't have any fun unless I had it. Which is a bad place to be." Later in the interview he said, "But I saw myself being dead in about five years if I didn't stop."[53]

In a 2018 interview with The New York Post, Quaid stated he was a registered independent and has voted for both Democratic and Republican candidates, saying that he did not consider himself an adherent to any particular ideology; though he did opine that Ronald Reagan was his favorite U.S. president of his lifetime.[54] In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Quaid stated that President Donald Trump was handling the pandemic well, calling him "involved".[55] He subsequently recorded an interview with infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci as part of an advertising campaign by the Department of Health and Human Services to "defeat despair" surrounding COVID-19.[56] Quaid later denied the ad was political in nature.[57]

Viewpoint with Dennis Quaid is a series of short films focused on public-interest topics that is hosted by Dennis Quaid. Since 2012 it has been airing through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other outlets.[63]