Elizabeth Smart has lived much of her life in the public eye for reasons no one would ever choose. Born in 1987, she became a national figure as a teenager after surviving a crime that shocked the country and reshaped conversations around child safety, victim advocacy, and recovery.
What followed was not a quiet retreat from public life, but a steady emergence as a voice of authority and empathy. Today, Smart is widely known not just for what happened to her, but for the clarity and resolve with which she speaks about survival, justice, and healing.
That story returned to public focus with Netflix’s recent documentary, Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, released on January 21. The film revisits the night she was taken from her Salt Lake City bedroom and the months she spent in captivity under Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee.
Through firsthand reflection and voices from those who searched for her, the documentary places Smart at the center—not as a symbol, but as a narrator of her own life, speaking candidly about survival and the person she has become.
Yet beyond advocacy and public testimony, there is also a deeply personal chapter that often receives quieter attention. In the years since rebuilding her life, Smart has embraced marriage and motherhood—parts of her story shaped by privacy rather than headlines.
In the sections ahead, we’ll take a closer look at her husband, their life together, and the family they’ve built away from the spotlight.
Elizabeth Smart’s Love Life, Engagement, and Marriage
Elizabeth and Matthew Gilmour built their relationship largely away from public spectacle, choosing privacy over publicity even as interest in their lives steadily grew. After meeting while serving on a Mormon mission trip in Paris, their bond developed outside the shadow of headlines.
Gilmour has spoken in the past about not initially recognizing Smart as the young woman whose kidnapping once dominated national news, a detail often noted as central to the sense of normalcy that shaped their early connection. That foundation carried into their engagement in January 2012, when he proposed with a sapphire ring near her family home.
The couple married on February 10, 2012, in Hawaii, beginning a chapter defined less by public appearances and more by stability and intention. While Smart continued her work as a child safety activist and public commentator, marriage introduced a quieter balance to her daily life, centered on partnership and routine.
Gilmour remained deliberately out of the spotlight, allowing Smart’s advocacy to stand on its own while keeping firm boundaries around their personal world.
Together, Smart and Gilmour are parents to three children, daughters Chloe and Olivia, and son James. Parenthood has added another dimension to Smart’s story, one shaped by care, protection, and long-term responsibility.
Who Is Elizabeth Smart’s Husband?
Smart has been married to Matthew Gilmour since February 2012. Matthew was born in 1991 in Scotland and raised in the city of Aberdeen, where his early years unfolded in a household closely tied to music and education.
He is the son of Stewart Gilmour and Kay Gilmour, both of whom worked as music tutors and played an active role in local music instruction. Their profession shaped a structured, arts-focused upbringing, one grounded in discipline and routine rather than public exposure.
Growing up, Matthew was one of five siblings, alongside Bethany, Chloe, Kyle, and Ashlea Gilmour. The family experienced a significant loss in July 2008, when his father passed away from cancer at the age of 48.
Stewart Gilmour was widely respected as a professional musician, known for playing the flugelhorn with a brass band, and his death marked a defining moment in the family’s life.
