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Pat Sajak has been married to his wife, Lesly Brown, for almost as long as he's been hosting Wheel of Fortune.
The longtime couple met in 1988 through mutual friends, although their relationship started as a platonic friendship. Things eventually turned romantic and by the following year, Sajak and Brown were married.
They went on to welcome two children together: daughter Maggie and son Patrick.
The television host — who announced his retirement from Wheel of Fortune in June 2023 and will be replaced by Ryan Seacrest — and Brown are very private when it comes to their relationship and family life. However, the former model and the couple's two children have made appearances on the famed game show.
Read on for everything to know about Pat Sajak's wife, Lesly Brown.
She is a former model
Prior to meeting Sajak, Brown was a model and an aspiring actress. She even posed for Playboy's "Women of Washington" issue. She attended the University of Maryland and graduated in 1986 with a degree in television production.
She and Sajak met through mutual friends
Brown met Sajak at the grand opening of a friend's sports bar in 1988. However, the two didn't see sparks fly straight away. "There was no electricity in the air," Sajak recalled in an interview with PEOPLE in the early '90s. He looked over at Brown and teased, "The subject of you didn't come up in my car ride home."
After their initial meeting, Sajak and Brown became friends. The two would talk on the phone and hang out, but "it wasn't romantic," as Brown told PEOPLE. Several months later, however, feelings started to develop.
She appeared on The Dating Show and it made Sajak jealous
While Sajak and Brown were navigating their feelings, Brown was selected as a contestant on a reality show called The Dating Show. She ended up going on a trip to Mexico with the bachelor who had chosen her on the show — and that stirred things up with Sajak. "Frankly, I was a little annoyed at that," he told PEOPLE.
"There was definitely borderline jealousy. That was good," Brown said. It was enough to make Sajak realize that Brown was the woman that he wanted to marry.
"I knew she was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with," Sajak recalled.
She and Sajak got married on New Year's Eve
Over the summer of 1989, Sajak proposed to Brown with a 3-carat marquise-shaped diamond ring. A few months later, the two exchanged vows in front of close family and friends at a Catholic church in Annapolis, Maryland. The reception was held nearby, in the backyard of Brown's parents' house. Sajak's Wheel of Fortune co-host Vanna White was also in attendance.
Both of their kids have been on Wheel of Fortune
Sajak and Brown are parents to a daughter, Maggie, and a son, Patrick.
In 2000, Maggie and Patrick made their first appearance on Wheel of Fortune, where they closed the show and shared the advice their dad and his co-host White had given them. In recent years, Maggie has taken a more active role on the show, stepping in as a guest letter-turner in January 2020 and conducting interviews for the show's College Week, in addition to various other appearances.
Her daughter is a country singer
The couple's daughter Maggie has had a passion for music since she was very young. In an interview with Teen Vogue in 2013, she said that she started playing the guitar when she was "seven or eight" and got "her first real guitar" when she was 13. She released an album called If I Was Gonna Go in 2012.
In addition to pursuing a career in music, Maggie attended Princeton University. These days, Maggie is a law student and works as a social correspondent for Wheel of Fortune, according to her Instagram bio.
Her son is a doctor
Brown and Sajak's son Patrick is not one for the public eye — but, in 2021, Sajak couldn't help but share an update about his son.
"Do you mind if I do a little parental bragging here?" Sajak said to White on an episode of Wheel of Fortune. "So you know my son, Patrick, you've known him all his life. Well he's made it through medical school, and he is now officially Dr. Sajak, and we're all thrilled." The game show host added that his son "insists" his dad refers to him as "Dr. Sajak."
"Lesly and I couldn't be prouder," Sajak said.
She was by her husband's side when he had emergency surgery
In 2019, Sajak underwent emergency surgery for a blocked intestine. In an interview with Good Morning America, Sajak recalled the "horrific" pain he felt at the time.
"You couldn't do anything. I was in [a] fetal position, lying on the bed. They try to give you various drugs for the pain. And none of it was working. And then they gave me something, I couldn't even tell you the name of it, but suddenly, I wasn't thinking about the pain. I just had these beautiful pastels and lovely faces coming out of it," he shared.
Through it all, Sajak had the support of Brown, who never left his side.
At one point in the interview, Sajak recalled thinking that he was going to die.
"I felt badly for [my family]. I didn't feel badly about dying. I felt badly that they were gonna have to deal with the aftermath. As it turned out, I was just high," he said.
A couple of weeks post-op, Sajak said he was "feelin' great."
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