Many Are Curious About Actress Amanda Peet's Family Life After Reading Her Personal Essay
"One surprise of motherhood for me was how little control I have."
Published March 23 2026, 9:06 p.m. ET
Actress Amanda Peet has credits in Your Friends & Neighbors, Fatal Attraction, Togetherness, Brockmire, and The Good Wife, among other shows and movies. However, she's making headlines in March 2026 for an entirely different reason.
On March 21, 2026, Amanda published a personal essay in The New Yorker about receiving a cancer diagnosis while both of her parents were in hospice, on opposite coasts. Her mom had late-stage Parkinson's disease, and she didn't disclose her diagnosis to either parent.
Amanda's frank discussion of death, grief, and her own health issues resonated with readers, who then wanted to know more about her personal life.
Amanda Peet has been married to David Benioff since 2006.
David Benioff is a screenwriter, television producer, and novelist who is best known for his work as the co-creator and showrunner of Game of Thrones. He went to Dartmouth College for English literature and later studied at Trinity College, according to Yahoo.
He wrote the book "The 25th Hour," which served as his introduction to show business. Tobey Maguire reportedly picked up the book and requested a book-to-film adaptation.
David and Amanda met in 2002, four years before they tied the knot. On an episode of the Armchair Expert podcast, Amanda revealed that David had once dated her "celebrity doppleganger" while they were on a relationship hiatus, per Huff Post. Amanda said that she and Lake Bell, who David was then dating, were often confused for each other on red carpets.
However, all worked out well for David and Amanda eventually! They've been married for over 20 years and share three children.
A pregnant Amanda Peet with her daughter Frances in 2010.
Amanda talked about sharing her diagnosis with her kids.
Amanda and David have three kids: Frances, 19, Molly, 15, and Henry, 11. In her essay, Amanda said that her therapist told her not to worry about seeing strong or unfazed by her diagnosis.
Amanda said, "Molly cried, and Frankie − FaceTiming from her college quad − clapped her hand over her mouth and kept it there until she was able to process the excellent portion of the news: that it appeared I was Stage I and wasn’t going to need chemo."
Amanda said that both of her daughters were worried that she was sugarcoating the news. She wrote, "My daughters were on the cusp of adulthood. If we were going to remain close, to know each other deeply over the course of a lifetime, we would have to learn how to have difficult conversations."
According to People, Amanda spoke to Cookie Magazine about her experience with parenting in 2009. "One surprise of motherhood for me was how little control I have," she said at the time.
She added, "I thought it would be an extended, blissful romance with me at the helm, cuddling this little creature to life. It’s been bittersweet and humbling to let her lead, and to try not to be perfect myself."