Josh Duhamel Shares How He Realized He's "Too Old" for Wife Audra Mari

Josh Duhamel Welcomes Baby No. 3, His 2nd With Wife Audra Mari

Josh Duhamel remembers exactly when his perspective on his age gap with wife Audra Mari was transformed.

In fact, the Transformers actor admittedly didn't connect the dots that he’s 21 years older than the former Miss World America until he looked back on the arrival of his younger sister Kassidy Kemper.

"There’s a picture of me holding Kassidy as a 21-year-old young man with this little bitty infant," Duhamel, now 53, told host Ryan Sickler on the HoneyDew podcast July 13. "I looked at the photo, and I looked at my wife, and I said, ‘You and Kassidy are exactly the same age.'"

Duhamel noted that his stepsister from mom Bonnie Kemper's second marriage was born at a time when he was a star college athlete.

"I was playing football at Minot State University. I remember looking up at the stands, and I saw my mom and [she] had this bump," Duhamel elaborated. "And I’m like, ‘Is my mom pregnant?’ I’m 21 years old, and she’s having another baby."

Quipping that the connection could be a “highlight or a lowlight," the Shotgun Wedding star then realized that he had underestimated his age difference with Mari, with whom he shares kids Shepherd Lawrence Duhamel, 2, and Rocca de Leon Duhamel, 2 months.

"I am officially too old for you," Duhamel remembered joking to the model after he rediscovered the family photo, adding, "They’re literally months apart in age. I never looked at it like that until I saw that photo. I was like, ‘Wait a second.'"

But for the Safe Haven alum—who split from Fergie in 2019, with whom he shares son Axl Jack Duhamel, 12—his relationship with Mari goes deeper than numbers. After all, they had already been friends for years before dating.

Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures

"It was truly platonic for years," Duhamel recounted on a 2025 episode of the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast, sharing that he initially told himself, "'I'm not even going to go there.'"

And while Duhamel did initially think Mari was “too young” for him to date, her personality overcame his hesitations about their age gap in the end.

As Duhamel put it, "She's more mature than I am. That's how we started dating."

For more about what stars have learned from their age-gap relationships, read on...

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