Shonda Rhimes was the talk of the ton at the Bridgerton season 4 premiere — with three very special guests in tow.
Rhimes, 56, sparkled in a silver caped gown at the Wednesday, January 14, premiere at Paris’ Palais Brongniart, where she walked the red carpet with daughters Harper, 23, Emerson, 12, and Beckett, 11.
Harper looked glam in a black-and-gold gown, while Emerson and Beckett rocked floral and lilac dresses for the occasion.
Rhimes, who leads the production company behind Bridgerton, welcomed Harper through adoption in 2002. She later adopted Emerson in 2012 and welcomed Beckett via surrogate in 2013.
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Rhimes kept her parenting plans under wraps until bringing her babies home.
“I’ve been writing adoption into story lines on my shows and only a few people close to me knew about my plans,” Rhimes exclusively told Us Weekly in 2012 of adopting Emerson. “I think the response was ‘oh my goodness’ from a lot of people.”
At the time, Rhimes said she was embracing newborn bliss.
“Emerson is incredibly mellow,” she gushed to Us. “This is a happy time — I feel so lucky.”
Rhimes announced Beckett’s arrival to the family the next year.
“Been AWOL from Twitter. I totally have a good reason: TINY HUMAN #3 is here and she’s perfect!” she tweeted in September 2013. “Babies are good. Life is good. #2shows3kids.”
As Harper, Emerson and Beckett have grown up, Rhimes has offered rare insight into their evolving relationships.
“I have a 23-year-old who lives in London, so she’s living her best London life right now,” Rhimes said on an October 2025 appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, noting she has frequent visits with Harper thanks to Bridgerton being filmed in the U.K. “I get to go over, which is wonderful.”
She continued, “For me, a typical night at home is me and my daughters, we have dinner, we hang out and we go and let the dogs run around.”
Rhimes’ kids, however, couldn’t be less interested in watching any Shondaland TV shows.
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“I don’t think [Harper] has ever watched any of my shows,” she quipped. “She watched How to Get Away With Murder because I didn’t make that. My second daughter, who’s 13, she started watching Grey’s Anatomy … [for] eight or nine episodes, and then Cristina had an ectopic pregnancy, and she was furious. She was like, ‘I didn’t understand this was coming. I think this is too old for me,’ and she turned it off.”
Beckett also hasn’t watched a Shondaland program.
“She and her little seventh grade friends have — and this is so insulting but also so great — made a pact that none of them are ever going to watch Grey’s Anatomy,” Rhimes said. “Nobody wants to know what Beckett’s mother has to say about life, love or anything else.”
She continued, “I was like, ‘Fine, you little haters,’ but it’s also fantastic. I feel like my children’s self-esteem is clearly intact when they are not impressed.”
The first half of Bridgerton season 4 premieres on Netflix Thursday, January 29.
