Josh Duhamel Says He Only Just Realized His Wife Is the Same Age as His Younger Sister: ‘I Am Officially Too Old for You”
Josh Duhamel has been married to
since 2022, but it took an old family photo for the actor to clock just how the numbers lined up. His wife, it turns out, is the same age as his younger sister.
Audra Mari, 32, was born just months apart from Duhamel’s younger sister Kassidy — a coincidence the Transformers actor, now 53, didn’t do the math on until he stumbled across a snapshot from decades earlier.
He explained the moment it hit him on the July 13 episode of the HoneyDew podcast with host Ryan Sickler. “There’s a picture of me holding Kassidy as a 21-year-old young man with this little bitty infant,” Duhamel said. “I looked at the photo, and I looked at my wife, and I said, ‘You and Kassidy are exactly the same age.’ … I am officially too old for you.” As he put it, “They’re literally like months apart in age. I never looked at it like that until I saw that photo.”
Kassidy is his stepsister from mom Bonnie Kemper’s second marriage. She arrived while Duhamel was a college athlete at Minot State University. “I remember looking up at the stands, and I saw my mom and [she] had this bump. And I’m like, ‘Is my mom pregnant?’ I’m 21 years old, and she’s having another baby.”
Mari grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and studied public relations and communications at North Dakota State University. She was 1st runner-up at both Miss Teen USA 2011 and Miss USA 2014 before winning Miss World America 2016 and placing in the top 11 at Miss World that December. She moved to Miami at 20 to model, landed the cover of Ocean Drive’s swimsuit issue and H&M campaigns, and later hosted travel shows on the Welcome Channel and for InForum.
Duhamel first messaged Mari on social media after her North Dakota pageant wins. They were friends for years before dating. “It was truly platonic for years,” Duhamel said on a 2025 episode of the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast, recalling that he first told himself, “I’m not even going to go there.” He did think Mari was too young at first, but as he put it, “She’s more mature than I am. That’s how we started dating.”
They started dating in late 2018 and married in September 2022 in Fargo. They share two kids, Shepherd Lawrence Duhamel, 2, and Rocca de Leon Duhamel, 2 months. He was married to Fergie until their 2019 split, and they share son Axl Jack Duhamel, 12.
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