Leah Remini shares her daughter Sofia with her estranged husband Angelo Pagán, from whom she split in August 2024 after 21 years of marriage
Leah Remini's daughter is all grown up!
The King of Queens star shares one child, daughter Sofia Bella Pagán, 20, with estranged husband Angelo Pagán. Remini and Pagán welcomed Sofia one year after their 2003 Las Vegas wedding and remained together until their separation in August 2024.
"You really don't realize until you have a child how much you can love another person ... I literally can say I would die for this person," Remini said of her daughter in a 2015 promo for her TLC reality show, It's All Relative. "... And when you realize, 'I will stand in front of a truck for my kid,' you realize, I really love this person. That's crazy love."
During a 2019 conversation with friend Michelle Visage for Larry King Now, Remini admitted that raising a daughter the right way can be "difficult."
"I want her to be different," the Kevin Can Wait alum said while discussing her and Visage's parenting styles. "I want her to grow up a little classier than her mother and father, I mean, call me crazy ... She's empathetic and compassionate and that really is what I care about, that she's a person that cares for others and she's a person that sticks up for others."
Visage added that Sofia was a "ballsy chick, like her mom," which Remini agreed with, saying, "She is. She speaks up, she speaks out, and that's something I'm really, really proud of. I'm proud of her heart."
When Sofia turned 18 in 2022, Remini shared a sweet tribute alongside video footage taken shortly after Sofia's birth to celebrate her daughter officially becoming an adult. "Sofia Bella, I can honestly say I have never known love until the day I held you in my arms," the Troublemaker author wrote on Instagram. "I am crying as I try and post something here to tell you how much you have given me. Making me, your mom has been my greatest honor. Daddy and I adore you."
Here's everything to know about Leah Remini's daughter, Sofia Bella Pagán.
She was born in Los Angeles
Though both of her parents grew up on the East Coast — Remini was born and raised in Brooklyn, while Pagán was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in New York City — Sofia was born in Los Angeles on June 16, 2004.
To honor National Daughter's Day in 2022, Remini shared a throwback photo of her holding newborn Sofia and wrote, "The best thing that ever happened to me."
She grew up "obsessed" with female pop singers
While Sofia hasn't followed in her parents' acting footsteps quite yet, she's been comfortable with the spotlight from a young age.
In 2009, the Second Act star told PEOPLE that Sofia, who was then obsessed with Kelly Clarkson, Pink and Miley Cyrus' "The Climb," "just started singing very loudly."
"She used to really not want to be listened to or looked at, and now it's like full-on concerts," Remini said. "[She is] like, 'Have you heard me sing this song ... and 18 songs on my iPod?' "
More than a decade later, Pagán — a singer, dancer and actor — shared a throwback photo joking about his daughter's "last gig with the band before she quit!" "Something about she couldn't work with the lead singer. #creativedifferences," he wrote on Instagram in May 2020.
Her childhood crushes were Jake Gyllenhaal and Orlando Bloom
In 2010, then-6-year-old Sofia interviewed her mom for Redbook. In the cute Q&A, Remini revealed that her young daughter had a crush on Jake Gyllenhaal, while Sofia herself named Orlando Bloom.
Sofia also listed some of her favorite movies at the time, which were "Prince of Persia, Chronicles of Narnia and I looove Karate Kid because Jaden [Smith] is my friend."
She got her driver's license and went to prom during the COVID-19 pandemic
Sofia hit quite a few milestones in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those major moments in 2021 and 2022 included starting her senior year of high school, getting her driver's license, going to prom and graduating high school.
"Senior year is filled with exciting milestones, but it doesn't make it any less sad for parents when we wonder how time flew by so fast," Remini wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of her husband and daughter on Sofia's prom night in May 2022. "Angelo and I couldn't be prouder of the young woman Sofia is becoming. But I need this process to slow down."
She is a college student
In the fall of 2022, Sofia started her freshman year of college.
"Bringing our only child to college for the first time has been the most excruciatingly painful and proudest moment of my life," Remini wrote on Instagram in September 2022. "I have never cried so much in my life. I am only comforted by meeting other parents at Target who bonded with me over our mutual pain and pride."
However, just a few months later, Remini told PEOPLE "things didn't go as planned"and Sofia had recently started courses at another university.
"I moved her into a dorm room and came home heartbroken to a quiet house. Things didn't go as planned, and we got our daughter home for another few months," Remini said. "In January, we moved her into another college and her apartment. It's been a few weeks since she left for the second time, and my husband and I are even more of a mess now."
The beginning of Sofia's college career also came at a special time for the mother-daughter duo as Remini had also started working toward a degree of her own in 2022. In May 2024, Remini announced she had earned her associate's degree from New York University and is now working on her bachelor's degree.
Remini has described Sofia as "strong-minded"
In February 2022, Remini opened up to PEOPLE about her life nine years after leaving the Church of Scientology. The actress and host of thePEOPLE Puzzlergame show said that if she had not left the churchafter 30 years in 2013 with Pagán, Sofia "wouldn't be the strong-minded kid she is now, who, hopefully, is going to make some positive change in the world."
The actress continued, "I'm always saying to her and her friends, 'I hope you are going to take all this genius and get your asses into Congress.' That's how you're going to change things."
Remini added that seeing Sofia succeed was worth the past struggle of leaving Scientology, which she documented in her A&E seriesLeah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath.
"My friend Sherry, who also left the church and has a son in college now, recently texted me, 'Aren't we so jealous of our kids?' " Remini recalled. "We wish we had what we've given them."
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