Personal Life
Baxter has been married three times and has five children. In 1966, she married Robert Lewis Bush and they had two children — Theodore Justin ("Ted"; born 1967) and Eva Whitney (born August 6, 1969); the couple was divorced in 1971. In 1974, she married David Birney and had three children — Kathleen Jeanne ("Kate"; born December 5, 1974) and twins, Mollie Elizabeth and Peter David Edwin (born October 2, 1984). She and David Birney divorced in 1989. In 1995, she married actor and screenwriter Michael Blodgett; they were divorced in 2000.
Baxter was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. Baxter was the guest speaker at the 2008 Southern Commencement for National University in La Jolla, California, and was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from the university.
On December 2, 2009, she came out as a lesbian during an interview with Matt Lauer on Today, and on the Frank DeCaro Show on Sirius-XM OutQ 102. She lives with her partner, Nancy Locke, a general contractor, with whom she has been since 2005. Baxter said she first realized she was a lesbian when she began her first same-sex relationship in 2002. On December 17, 2009, TV Guide reported that Baxter would write a memoir. Broadway Books, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, had purchased the rights to Baxter's life story. Her memoir, titled Untied, was published in 2011.
Read more about this topic: Meredith Baxter
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