Who is Jon Stewart's wife? Oprah Winfrey called the couple 'the real deal'

Ever since Jon Stewart stepped away from "The Daily Show" in 2015, fans have waited the host's return — and as of 2024, it's coming. Stewart is returning to host “The Daily Show” on Monday nights through the 2024 election.

The year after he left the Comedy Central nightly show, Jon Stewart and his wife Tracey Stewart purchased a New Jersey farm and later announced their plans to open an animal rescue sanctuary, per NJ.com.

Oprah Winfrey called the couple's marriage "the real deal" on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in 2005. "What I felt between you and Tracey ... the way you looked at her, the way she looked at you ... the way you both looked at your little boy. That was one of the sweetest, most endearing things," she said. She also pointed out that Jon Stewart called his wife "babe."

Curious to learn more about the couple? Read on.

The couple met on a blind date

Jon Stewart and Tracy McShane met in 1995, fresh off the cancellation of the comedian’s show “The Jon Stewart Show.”

Appearing on an episode of the “Strike Force Five” podcast in 2023, Jon Stewart recalled his first meeting with his future wife — and how it didn’t go exactly as planned.

For reasons he didn't explain, Tracey Stewart didn’t eat any of her food at the Mexican restaurant they went to. “I apparently nauseated her, she would not touch her food, so I threw it all down,” he said.

Things went smoother at the date’s next stop at a bar. “Once she started talking and (I realized) how funny and smart she was? Oh, my God,” he said.

They've always had pets

During a 2015 interview with The New York Times, Tracey Stewart said she encountered one hurdle in their early days of dating: Jon Stewart had two cats, and she's allergic.

“The fact that he got custody of the cats (from a prior relationship) said so much about him,” she said. “This was my dream man. But I also knew that because he loved animals, if those animals didn’t like me, that might really count against me. I was like: ‘They’re going to love me. I don’t care if I have hives.’”

As of a New Yorker profile in 2002, the couple had two dogs and a cat. That number grew per a 2015 NPR interview, where the couple tallied they had "four dogs, four pigs, three rabbits, two guinea pigs, one parrot, one hamster, two fish" and three horses that lived off-site at the time.

The couple now has two children

After getting married in 2000, Jon and Tracey welcomed their first child, a son named Nathan Stewart in 2004, per a Rolling Stone profile. Two years later, they had a daughter named Maggie Rose Stewart.

Speaking with The New York Times in 2015, Tracey Stewart shared that the couple had their children through IVF.

She used to be a veterinary technician

In 1999, the same year Jon Stewart started hosting "The Daily Show," Tracey Stewart became a veterinary technician, per the New York Times.

“(The work) gave me a kind of purpose in this world,” she told the publication. “And also, I felt macho.”

Tracey Stewart continued her work as an animal advocate for the rest of her career. Her 2015 book, “Do Unto Animals: A Friendly Guide to How Animals Live, and How We Can Make Their Lives Better," is meant to make people rethink their relationships to the animal kingdom.

“I’d like people to start to look at animals as individuals,” she told the New York Times. “If everyone did a bit more, if they fell in love a little bit more, so much could happen. It doesn’t have to be going vegan. You can advocate for them. You can show tenderness. You can play music for them. I really hope people can connect with animals the way most of us did as children.”

The couple had plans to open an animal sanctuary

The year after Jon Stewart stepped back from the "Daily Show," he and Tracey Stewart purchased a farm in New Jersey. In 2017, they proposed opening an animal sanctuary and farm on their 45-acre property before the Colts Neck, New Jersey planning board, which was approved, per NJ.com.

Animal lovers through and though, the couple once picked up a bull that was on the loose in New York City and personally drove it to another animal sanctuary.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com