- Jerry Seinfeld wed wife Jessica in 1999, and went on to welcome three kids with her: Sascha Julian and Shepherd
- Their oldest daughter Sascha, who is studying at Duke University, is already an award-winning writer
- Middle child Julian has followed in Sascha’s footsteps by also enrolling at North Carolina’s Duke University
Jerry Seinfeld began his career as a stand-up comic and actor in the late 1970s, ultimately becoming a household name due to his leading role in the sitcom Seinfeld. While the adventures of Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer resulted in lots of laughs during the series’ run in the ’90s, Jerry has taken another role in his life much more seriously: father and husband. The comic and his longtime wife Jessica, whom he wed in 1999, share three children: Sascha, 22, Julian Kal, 20, and Shepherd Kellen, 17.
In his interview with Mr. Porter in 2017, Jerry opened up about the joys of fatherhood, explaining that he enjoyed best what he called “garbage time” as opposed to “quality time” with his children. “We spend a lot of time together and I enjoy every second of it,” the comedian said of his kids. “I’m a believer in the ordinary and the mundane. These guys that talk about ‘quality time’ — I always find that a little sad when they say, ‘We have quality time.'”
“I don’t want quality time,” Jerry continued. “I want the garbage time. That’s what I like. You just see them in their room reading a comic book and you get to kind of watch that for a minute, or a bowl of Cheerios at 11 o’clock at night when they’re not even supposed to be up. The garbage, that’s what I love.” A year prior to his profile, the comedian offered this nugget of a quote about fatherhood to The Hollywood Reporter: “Being a dad is the greatest pain in the ass in the world you could possibly be involved in.”
Below is everything you should know about the comedian’s three children.
Sascha Seinfeld
At 22, Sascha is Jerry and Jessica’s firstborn and oldest child. While a native New Yorker like her father, Sascha is currently a student at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina where she is majoring in English. She’s already received major accolades in the program, earning the the Anne Flexner Memorial Award for Fiction in April 2022. She is set to graduate in 2023.
Per her LinkedIn, Sascha previously interned on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in the summer of 2018, as well as TED-Ed the months prior. Through her university, she also worked as an assistant for playwright Richard Maxwell‘s art installation with Duke Theater Studies.
Sascha has also starred alongside her dad in some of his movies and specials, including Bee Movie and PBS NewsHour. The biggest indication that Sascha is most definitely her father’s daughter is her love of New York. She recently shared snapshots from the city on her Instagram and captioned the post with a quote from novelist John Updike: “The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” (Her famous dad, for his part, left a comment on the post that said, “So good.”)
Amy Schumer has also praised the college student’s writing abilities. “For years, I’ve asked Sascha her opinion on things…She’s been my touchstone for, ‘Tell me what people your age are doing, how they’re communicating and what they’re thinking about’,” Amy said to The Hollywood Reporter. “Sascha is hilarious and she’s really dark, in a way that Jerry isn’t,” she said. “I think she’s going to have a big career.”
Julian Kai Seinfeld
https://www.instagram.com/p/CRAc9T5lwot/
At 20, Julian is Jerry and Jessica’s middle child. Julian just joined his older sister at Duke University as a freshman. His mom previously documented his college move-in day on her social media when he first started in 2021, sharing snapshots of her and her husband with Julian on campus. “#2 is launched,” the proud mom wrote on one photo, adding in another, “Had fun even while searching campus for a lost Jerry in 95F heat. Why are some men the worst at directions and instructions?”
While Jerry and Jessica rarely share snapshots of their children, Jessica shared a photo with Julian and her two other children back in May amid his high school graduation. “Another child is graduating from high school this month,” she captioned the post. “How old is the oldest woman ever to have a baby?”
On March 2, 2023, Jessica also posted a sweet message for her son on his 20th birthday. “Happy 20th Birthday to @julianseinfeld! Your work ethic enables you to balance a heavy college course load with a job you love. Your sharply tuned BS detector suffers not one fool,” she said. “The moral high bar you set for those around you keeps us all in line. You chose your friends wisely, and treat them all like family,” she also wrote, going on to call her middle child “a phenomenal and gorgeous human being.”
Shepherd Kellen Seinfeld
At 17, Shepherd is Jerry and Jessica’s youngest child. It does not appear that the high school teen is on social media, but he was featured in the high school graduation snapshot that Jessica shared on Instagram back in May, offering a rare glimpse of the comedian’s youngest son. Like his older sister, Shepherd has appeared alongside his dad in his animated film Bee Movie. Not much is known about the youngest Seinfeld, but Jessica has previously revealed that her comedian husband is an “incredible” father to her teenage son and his two other siblings.
“The nicest way to say this is that he wasn’t a natural when our kids were born,” Jessica told PEOPLE last May. “He wasn’t immediately pushing strollers and carrying babies. He jokes that it took him a good 10 years to warm up.” With his children now grown, however, the comedian has come into his own. “Jerry’s strength is now, with our three teenagers,” Jessica continued. “He’s patient with them. Where I am weaker, he is stronger, and we complement each other. I wouldn’t change anything.”