Who Is Jim Gaffigan’s Wife? Meet the Comedian's Personal and Professional Executive Producer, Jeannie Gaffigan

Author:
Shameika Rhymes
Dec 20, 2021

"If a man calls another man crazy, it's a compliment. But if I was like, 'This is my wife, Jeannie. She's crazy...'"

Comedian Jim Gaffigan has never been afraid to poke fun at his personal life as a husband and father (to five kids!) in his stand-up material. And the same goes for his latest offering, the Netflix special Comedy Monster (which premieres Tuesday, Dec. 21 on the platform), in which—as the quote above attests—Gaffigan really toes the line by hinting that real-life wife Jeannie Gaffigan is, shall we say, the less rational of the two.

Don't worry, she's not. In fact, Jeannie's not only Jim's co-pilot in his personal life; she's also the co-executive producer on most of his TV projects! Here’s what we know about Jeannie Gaffigan, the woman that has been by Jim Gaffigan’s side for the past two decades.

Who is Jim Gaffigan's wife?

Jeannie Noth Gaffigan was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is 51 years old. She graduated from Marquette University.

Both Gaffigans are Catholic; in fact, Jim has even jokingly described Jeannie's devout nature as “Shiite Catholic. ” They also both come from big, Midwestern families; while he grew up the youngest of six children in Chesterton, Indiana, she was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the oldest of nine.

How did Jim Gaffigan meet his wife?

Jim and Jeannie both moved to New York City in their 20s to pursue their respective careers, and ended up living on the same block in the same Manhattan neighborhood, which is how they eventually bumped into each other. Jeannie saw Jim perform in a sketch group and told CountryLiving that he blew her away, “I was like, ‘He’s really good,'” she said. They began talking after running into each other at a local market.Gaffigan asked her to lunch, but she resisted at first. ''I said, 'I'm busy,'" she's recalled. "Then he asked again, and again. When I finally said I'd go out to lunch with him the next Saturday, he said to me, 'You know, we're probably going to get married.'"

They started their professional collaboration when Jeannie asked Jim to do a workshop for her nonprofit, Shakespeare on the Playground, and he asked for her help in developing his acting skills. That led to the short-lived, 2000 CBS comedy Welcome to New York (co-starring Christine Baranski and Sara Gilbert) which led to them working together more, often, which eventually led to them falling in love.

What does Jeannie Gaffigan do?

Jeannie is a comedy writer and producer who has worked behind the scenes on all of her husband’s comedy specials, co-writing, directing and/or executive-producing Beyond the Pale (2006), King Baby (2009), Mr. Universe (2012), Obsessed (2014) and Cinco (2017), Noble Ape (2018) and Quality Time (2019) and The Pale Tourist (2020). She similarly worked on his TV Land sitcom The Jim Gaffigan Show, which was loosely based on their life together, from 2015 to 2016. (Her alter ego was played by frequent Hallmark Channel Christmas movie star, Ashley Williams.)

Jeannie also wrote a book titled When Life Gives You Pears; The Healing Power Of Family, Faith, and Funny Peopleand is the director and a founding member of The Imagine Society Inc., a youth-led, not-for-profit group that brings youth-service organizations together to help better their communities.

What kind of illness did Jeannie Gaffigan have?

In April 2017, Jeannie was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor. Surgeons said the pear-sized (now you know where her book's title comes from!) papilloma of the choroid plexus wrapped around her brain stem and had been growing for a year. She told PEOPLE that, for months, she brushed off recurring headaches, dizziness, coughing fits, even her loss of hearing. “I was a ticking time bomb, waiting to be paralyzed,” she said. Thankfully, Jeannie soon underwent a successful, nine-hour surgery to remove the tumor, but her recovery wasn’t easy. She battled aspiration pneumonia before she was released from the hospital and had to have a feeding tube. "In addition to making deals with God,” Jeannie told AARP, “all I wanted to do was live and be a Victoria's Secret model."

Jim was a supportive spouse through it all. Jeannie told NPR in 2019, "When [Jim] realized that he was not going to be a widower, he just was my personal comedy concierge. He would wash my hair. He turned into… this very Steel Magnolias gossipy salon owner who has been divorced five times. And this kind of thing showed me… my marriage to Jim was designed at the beginning of time.” She has since recovered from the surgery, and the couple took their experience and infused it into Jim’s standup. “The tumor is gone and so is my ability to win another argument,” he joked.

How long has Jim Gaffigan been married?

Jim and Jeannie tied the knot on July 26, 2003, at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in New York. He was 37 and she was 33 at the time. In 2021, they celebrated their 18th wedding anniversary—with jokes on Instagram, of course.

How many children does Jim Gaffigan have?

The couple has five kids (Jack, Marre, Katie, Patrick and Michael) all of whom were born at home. Onstage, Jim has said about their home-birth experience, “[Home birth] means you take the hundreds of years of medical knowledge and just throw that away. And you wing it! 'Hey, I can’t program a VCR. I’m here to help. Where would you like me to stand terrified?'”

In 2008, the Gaffigans experienced an infant loss when they welcomed a newborn who tragically passed away only a few hours after her birth. The Gaffigans later spoke candidly about their loss with Catholic New York, “We were able to hold our baby until she fell asleep and didn’t wake up," Jeannie said, adding that her prayers were heard when they later welcomed another daughter, Katie, on Mother's Day in 2009. “I think the Blessed Mother was showing me that through great pain, in a very literal way, comes a beautiful gift from God,” Jeannie recalled.

Jim has praised his wife’s parenting skills. "She's tireless and very good at making things special for the kids, like decorating their rooms and giving them actual attention," he once told PEOPLE. However, Jim revealed during aninterview that he is the disciplinarian of the family, taking away screen time.

Where does Jim Gaffigan live?

Until 2015, the entire Gaffigan clan lived in a two-bedroom apartment in downtown Manhattan. Jim has spoken frequently about his and Jeannie's unusual decision to raise so many kids in such a small space, telling NPR in 2013, "I understand the value of a yard. I understand the value of a kid just coming home covered in dirt because he was playing in mud. But that can also be accomplished—and there's a lot of values of living in a city environment. The people that I meet that grew up in a city, whether it's New York or Boston, I like them. They're well-adjusted. They're not freaked out by two men holding hands. They're not freaked out by socio- or economic or cultural differences, and that's, I think, an important gift to give children."

They ultimately upgraded to a bigger city apartment (which is actually comprised of three adjacent apartments put together), a life change that likewise played out on The Jim Gaffigan Show.

Three months into the pandemic, however, the family "rented a house and moved upstate," as Jim revealed in July 2020, although it's unclear if they've since relocated back to NYC.

Related: Get to Know Eddie Murphy’s 10 Kids and Their Mothers

Why do they stream their family dinners on YouTube?

While the Gaffigans have never had their own reality show, they did decide to give fans a peek at their private lives during quarantine lockdown by inviting them to dinner via YouTube for a good cause. “I have friends who won’t share photos of their children on Instagram. But there’s a difference between Dinner With the Gaffigans, which raises money to feed healthcare workers, and going full Kardashian. The secret benefit is we are forced to have dinner together,” said Jim.

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