Chyler Leigh has confirmed that she and Nathan West quietly broke up after more than two decades of marriage, saying the relationship had reached a point where it was time to let it go. The 44-year-old actor said on the May 12 episode of the Books That Changed My Life podcast that the split was amicable and that she and West are coparenting their three children.
Leigh said she and West had tried to work through the marriage, but that what she wanted and what he wanted no longer lined up. “We’re doing all the things that we can,” she said, adding that it had become clear that they needed to make a decision. She said she would rather the two be on good terms than hold onto resentment and anger, saying that kind of dynamic “just shifts the mood and the dynamic of everything.”
The separation marks the end of a marriage that began in 2002, though Leigh said the two had actually been together for 26 years by 2025. They met in 1999 during an audition for a WB pilot, according to entertainment reporting, and built a family that now includes Noah, 23, Taelyn, 19, and Anniston, 17. Leigh said the incompatibility between them had become “abundantly apparent” and that even the children were picking up on it.
That point is where the story moves from celebrity breakup to a more complicated family decision. Leigh said trauma each of them had experienced individually had started to affect the union, and the split, in her telling, came after a long stretch of trying to keep the marriage together. She has generally kept her private life out of the spotlight, making the confirmation especially notable for a performer who rarely discusses family matters publicly.
The timing also underscores how recently the family had still been presenting a united front. In May 2025, Leigh shared a post about celebrating Anniston’s 16th birthday at Disney World, calling the last couple of days “such a blast” and thanking Disney for making the milestone memorable. The juxtaposition is plain: a family celebration in public, followed soon after by a quiet acknowledgment that the marriage behind it had already ended.
For Leigh, the answer to the question hanging over the disclosure is direct. The marriage is over, she said, not after a blowup but after years of strain that neither side could fully bridge. What comes next is not a courtroom fight or a public split, but a coparenting arrangement she says is grounded in keeping the family steadier than the marriage had become.
