Ben Hollingsworth’s Real Life Is A Far Cry From Virgin River’s Brady

Following a nurse who trades in bustling LA for a remote town in Northern California, romantic drama Virgin River is back on Netflix with its hotly-anticipated fourth season. The series is based on the Virgin River novels penned by Robyn Carr. In the latest series, troubled ex-Marine Dan Brady (commonly referred to by his surname only) is in prison, having been framed for a shooting. The fall-out commences, with the partially reformed bad boy taking centre stage once more. Brady is played by Canadian actor Ben Hollingsworth, who you might just recognise from other major TV shows.

The 37-year-old starred in legal drama Suits, where Meghan Markle famously got her big break, and medical drama Code Black. When he’s not on set, meanwhile, Hollingsworth lives a calmer existence than his Virgin River character. The actor married his wife Nila Myers in 2012 after two years of dating, and the couple now have three children together: sons Gatsby and Hemingway, and daughter Juniper. Hollingsworth says his favourite part of day-to-day life is returning home to greet them. “I love the unconditional love in their eyes when I get home from work or pick them up from preschool. That running “Daddy!” battle cry is my all-time favourite,” he told ParentsCanada.

While based in Santa Barbara over decade ago, Hollingsworth’s wife Myers founded the lingerie company Fair Verona with her sister Misha, creating designs inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Meanwhile, Hollingsworth and Myers married in November 2012 in a super-romantic ceremony, with the actor paying tribute to his wife on the morning of the wedding. “Today is the day,” he wrote on Twitter. “I woke up a boy and will go to sleep a man. I am so lucky to have found the woman I love and I want to grow old with.” In 2020, after ten years together, the couple relocated to build their “dream home in a small mountain town in Canada” together.

Nila frequently shares cute candid photographs of her family enjoying time off together on her Instagram account. “Watching you be a dad has been one of the greatest joys of my life,” she wrote to her husband last year. “The world needs more fathers and more men like Ben,” she wrote in another sweet tribute. “Thank you, my love, for setting the best role model for our boys. I know they will continue to look up to you no matter how tall they grow, and so will I.”

She also seems to approve of her husband’s latest role. “Now steaming… ” she quipped on her Instagram story, sharing a clip from Virgin River. “I mean streaming.”