Tragic Details About Walton Goggins' First Marriage

The following article includes mention of suicide. 

If you are up to speed on Season 3 of "The White Lotus," then you are probably as shocked by the ending as we are — if you haven't, beware of spoilers ahead. Rick Hatchett, played by the incomparable Walton Goggins, avenges his father's death by shooting the man who killed him. But, the man he guns down at the White Lotus resort was actually his father. And, without all the classic "White Lotus" melodrama, actor Goggins related to his character's tragic loss. 

The actor married Leanne Knight in 2001, and by 2004, the pair were estranged. According to Canyon News, the Canadian native owned a dog-walking business in Laurel Canyon, California, where she and Goggins built a life. But on November 12, 2004, Knight died by suicide. "Leanne made everyone feel special, whether it was a rescue dog that was out of control or a friend that never had time to sit down and have tea," the 2004 article read. 

"I thought it was really unrecoverable for me," he told GQ. "Life on the other side of that. And I spent the next three years looking for an excuse — not to end it, but certainly putting myself in situations that were questionable, not with drugs or anything like that, just life experiences and traveling. And I really went all over the world."

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org 

After the death of his wife, Walton Goggins traveled, seemingly to ease some of his grief. In April 2025, he told Vulture: "I went to Thailand 18 years ago after a trauma in my life, looking for peace, looking for some resolution that was not so dissimilar from what Rick was looking for." The actor revealed that he was dating his now-wife, filmmaker Nadia Conners, at the time and likened his emotional situation to that of Rick, whose detached attitude toward girlfriend Chelsea (Amie Lou Wood) was a constant conflict in this season. "I had nothing for my partner. I understood, intimately, Rick's frame of mind."

His character wasn't the only thing Goggins could connect with while filming "The White Lotus." According to the "Fallout" star, he remembered much of Thailand's landscape from his solo trip two decades before. Coincidentally, they were filming at a hotel that he already knew quite well. "We pulled up to this dock ... and I was like, 'I know this dock. What? Okay. Yeah. No. I know this. Oh my God. That's the room I stayed in 20 years ago. That's my balcony,'" he told GQ. "That's where I was the very first day I came here, 20 years ago, and in so much f**king pain, man."