All About Garrett Hedlund, the Actor Emma Roberts Is Expecting a Baby With

From ELLE

Emma Roberts confirmed in August that she is expecting her first child with Garrett Hedlund, her boyfriend of more than a year. Hedlund appeared with her in her announcement post—one of their first shots ever together on her Instagram.

Roberts and Hedlund have purposely kept their relationship pretty private since they were first reported to be dating in March 2019. But she recently spoke about her surprise pregnancy and her issues with infertility on the cover of Cosmopolitan.

Here's what you need to know about Hedlund, from his impressive film career to his previous four-year relationship with Kirsten Dunst.

He's a SAG Award-nominated actor.

The 35-year-old has said he fled farm life in Minnesota, where he was born, for the opportunity to become an actor. At age 14, Hedlund moved to Arizona to live with his mother and fly to auditions in Los Angeles, he told W Magazine. His first major film roles came in 2004, when he starred alongside Brad Pitt in Troy and Billy Bob Thornton in Friday Night Lights.

In the years after, he switched between starring in major blockbusters (TRON: Legacy, Unbroken) and smaller dramatic films (Inside Llewyn Davis, Billy Lynn's Halftime Walk). More recently, Hedlund co-starred with Ben Affleck in the Netflix action film Triple Frontier and in 2017, he was nominated as part of the ensemble of Mudbound for a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Hedlund and Roberts have been dating for just over a year.

Us Weekly reported that Hedlund and Roberts are expecting a child together. While the pair didn't initially comment on the rumors, E! News reports that Roberts' mom Kelly Cunningham confirmed the news. The outlet cited since-deleted Instagram comments Cunningham made when fans congratulated her on her daughter's reported pregnancy. "Thank you so much! Very excited," she responded to one Instagram comment. When another asked her if Roberts was pregnant, she replied, "Yes!!"

The pregnancy news is the first major update on Roberts and Hedlund's relationship in a while. They were first linked in March 2019 after being spotted on a walk in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. A source told Us Weekly at the time, “Garrett and Emma have been friends, but this is new, casual and just a couple of weeks old.” Their romance came shortly after Roberts ended her engagement with longtime on-off partner Evan Peters.

In January 2020, a source told Us Weekly that the couple was "having fun and enjoying each other" without getting too serious. "They are not talking an engagement or marriage at the moment," the outlet's source said. "They like hanging out and going out together, and their relationship is more fun than serious."

Hedlund appears with Roberts in their pregnancy announcement on Instagram.

Roberts announced that she and Hedlund are expecting a baby boy together on August 30, although they didn't share the due date. Hedlund appears in the second photo she posted. "Me...and my two favorite guys 💙💙," she wrote.

In early October, Roberts shared photos from her garden-themed baby shower. Hedlund doesn't make an appearance in any of the photos. But according to an E! source, Garrett's mom was among the 15 guests at the intimate, socially-distanced event. "Kristen Stewart was there with [her girlfriend] Dylan Meyer, [Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriend] Camilla Morrone came with her mom, Lily Kershaw. Emma's mom and Garrett's mom were both there," the insider said.

Hedlund sought treatment for alcohol abuse after a DUI arrest.

E! reported in early November that Hedlund had been arrested for a DUI in January. According to the outlet, he sought treatment for alcohol abuse after being assigned counseling at a Los Angeles courthouse. His rep told E!, "When the incident occurred, Garrett immediately sought treatment which was successful. Today, he is in a solid and great place." A source said that Hedlund's arrest "wasn't something that actually threatened a split" between he and Roberts, adding, "Emma is committed when she's with someone, and they are both conscious that it will take work."

Hedlund previously dated Kirsten Dunst.

Before Hedlund met Roberts, he dated his On the Road co-star Kirsten Dunst for more than four years. “I took her out on a 3 AM canoe ride,” he told Details of meeting Dunst on the 2011 set. “It was not a stable canoe. We fell out and had to swim back in mucky, shitty water, like golf-pond water.”

They split in early 2016, with a source telling People, "They have very different personalities and weren’t on the same page when it came to their future. Their relationship has been very rocky for a while, so the breakup is actually a relief for them." Dunst is now engaged to her Fargo co-star Jesse Plemons, with whom she shares a son.

He can sing.

In addition to Roberts and Hedlund being actors, both have sung over the course of their careers. Roberts sang and played guitar on the Nickelodeon series Unfabulous, while Hedlund sung in 2014's Lullaby and did a duet with Leighton Meester in 2010's Country Strong. E! News reported on rumors Meester and Hedlund were dating in real-life at the time, although nothing romantic offscreen was ever confirmed. She's now married to The O.C. star Adam Brody and reportedly expecting their second child.

He's also an avid reader.

Another passion the couple may connect on is a love of reading. During a 2012 Interview Magazine conversation with Jeff Bridges, Hedlund said, "It’s funny that I got to do On the Road because the thing that had the biggest impact on me growing up was reading books." He spoke to Details (via Us Weekly) the following year about spending his high school years at the local bookstore: "I’d hang out at the Borders Bookstore until it closed and then I would stick the book back on the shelf until the next day. That was safe. No one was going to buy three copies of [Charles] Bukowski's Tales of Ordinary Madness by the next afternoon." Roberts, too, is a major bookworm, founding the online book club Belletrist in 2017.

Hedlund has no official social media.

Roberts rarely posts about her relationship with Hedlund to her 14.6 million followers. And it seems that there's no official social media presence for Hedlund. She did share one photo with Hedlund in March captioned, "#throwbackthursday ❤️ *sorry mom for getting mad at you for posting this without asking* 📸 @kpreiss."

Hedlund and Roberts both have kept quiet about their private life since being linked, on social media or otherwise. Roberts declined to speak about Hedlund during an interview for Cosmopolitan's May 2019 cover story. But she did speak about how she deals with media attention on her relationships. “I spend hours on the phone with my mom,” Roberts told the outlet when asked about coping with paparazzi photos. “She puts everything into perspective. She’s never once judged me. I also have the most amazing group of friends. They come over and we lie in bed or talk, watch TV, or read short stories to each other. We open a bottle of wine. To me, that’s the best whenever anything is going on—to have everyone come over and be together.”

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