Elizabeth Smart was once unsure if she would ever live a normal life. She was just 14 years old when she was kidnapped from her Utah home in June 2002 and held captive for almost a year.
During that time, Smart’s kidnappers—Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee—subjected her to daily rape, starvation, and excessive drug and alcohol use. After nine months in captivity, she was rescued in March 2003 after a passerby recognized her and her captors in public.
Once she returned home to her family, Smart went back to school and resumed her usual activities, but she still struggled with the horrifying abduction she had endured, which is revisited in the new Netflix documentary Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart.
Despite this, Smart went on to graduate high school and college while advocating for kidnapping survivors and underaged victims of violence. And soon enough, the child safety activist, now 38, fulfilled her dream of building a family of her own.
Here’s everything you should know about Elizabeth Smart’s husband and children.
How Did Elizabeth Smart Meet Her Husband?
While at Brigham Young University, Smart went on a Mormon missionary trip to Paris in 2009, where she met her husband Matthew Gilmour.
Originally from Scotland, Gilmour was on a separate missionary trip at the time in the city of love. Because he was living outside the United States, he didn't recognize her from the news. “I got to know her as she truly is,” he told People magazine in 2012. “The thing that attracted me the most to her—at the beginning and now—is how confident she is, especially considering everything she has been through.”
The pair maintained a close friendship for two nearly two years before they began dating. After Gilmour's trip in France ended, he invited Smart to visit him in his home town. “When I walked off the plane in Aberdeen, Scotland and he was waiting for me I knew I had come home (not the country), I knew he was immediately my best friend, and everything I could ever want in a spouse,” she recalled in an Instagram post in June 2018.
When Did Smart and Gilmour Get Married?
After about a year of dating, Gilmour proposed to Smart with a sapphire engagement ring in January 2012. The couple originally planned to get married in Salt Lake City that summer, but when news of their engagement gained massive media attention, they quickly changed the date and location of their wedding. They exchanged vows in a private ceremony in Hawaii just one month later in February 2012. Smart was a senior in college at the time.
How Many Kids Does Smart Have?
The newlyweds soon settled down in Utah and went on to have three children together. They welcomed their first child, a daughter named Chloé, in February 2015. Two years later, Smart gave birth to their son, James, in April 2017. Their youngest child, a daughter named Olivia, was born in November 2018. “My children have brought so much happiness and joy,” Smart told People in November 2017. “To me, they’re the very definition of love.”
Do Smart’s Kids Know About Her Kidnapping?
As soon as they were old enough, Smart told each of her children what happened to her as a teenager without going into too much detail. “With all my children, really, I certainly never want to hide what happened in the past, because every single one of us has a past,” she said in an interview with E! News in January 2021. “But with that being said, it’s not all at once. And it’s age-appropriate, to the best of my ability.”
How Has Smart’s Abduction Shaped Her Parenting?
Smart’s harrowing kidnapping not only changed her life, but it also had a huge impact on her parenting style. Ahead of the release of her documentary, Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, the activist told Netflix's Tudum in January 2026 that her experience has made her “a lot more conscious and aware” of what her three children are up to.
“Making sure that they understand that their safety is a priority to me,” she said. “It’s why we don’t do sleepovers. I am very intentional and cautious about where they go and who they interact with. It’s led to a lot of safety conversations, and using the correct body part names.”
How to Watch Netflix’s Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart
The new Netflix documentary, Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, includes new interviews with Smart and individuals involved with the case investigation, Tudum has confirmed, which may shine new light on Mitchell’s behavior and life today.
Smart hopes other kidnapping survivors who see her story realize they aren’t alone and can feel unashamed of what happened to them. “And I hope that people who watch this can gain compassion and understanding for other families who are going through this,” she told Tudum.
“I also hope it brings comfort that there are happy endings—and that even after terrible things happen, you can still have a wonderful life,” she added.
Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart began streaming Wednesday, January 21, on Netflix.
Catherine Caruso joined the Biography.com staff in August 2024, having previously worked as a freelance journalist for several years. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she studied English literature. When she’s not working on a new story, you can find her reading, hitting the gym, or watching too much TV.
