Who Is Sawyer Gilbert-Adler? Meet Sara Gilbert’s Daughter

Sawyer Gilbert-Adler, full name Sawyer Jane Gilbert-Adler, is the daughter of actress Sara Gilbert and television producer Ali Adler. Sara Gilbert is known to millions as Darlene Conner from Roseanne and The Conners, and as the creator and long time host of the daytime show The Talk. Ali Adler is a writer and producer whose credits include Family Guy, Glee and Supergirl, which she helped create.

Born in August 2007, Sawyer grew up in Los Angeles inside a creative family but mostly outside the spotlight. Her parents kept their children’s lives private, so her name reaches most readers through one warm public moment: in 2019, on her mother’s final episode of The Talk, a young Sawyer surprised Sara Gilbert on stage with an original song she had written for her, called Mama. This article tells the documented family story around that moment, and leaves a young person’s private life where it belongs.

Quick Facts

Two Parents Who Built Big Careers

Sara Gilbert’s career began when she was a child. Born in 1975, she was cast at 13 as Darlene Conner, the sharp and funny middle child on Roseanne, one of the most watched American sitcoms of its time. She played Darlene across the show’s original run, returned for its 2018 revival, and continued in the spin-off The Conners. Along the way she studied at Yale University, graduating with honors in 1997 after majoring in art with an emphasis on photography, appeared on The Big Bang Theory as Leslie Winkle, and in 2010 created The Talk, the CBS daytime show she hosted and produced for nine years.

Ali Adler built her success behind the camera. She is a television writer and producer whose work includes Family Guy, Just Shoot Me and Glee, and she is best known as a co-creator of the superhero series Supergirl and of the comedy The New Normal. Between them, Sawyer’s parents covered nearly every corner of American television: acting and writing, comedy and drama, work in front of millions and work in the writers room where the stories are made.

Gilbert and Adler began their relationship in 2001 and were together for about ten years. For much of that time Gilbert kept her private life out of public discussion. She had known she was a lesbian since her teenage years, a fact she has said she shared privately with her Roseanne co-star and friend Johnny Galecki, but she did not discuss her sexuality publicly until July 2010, as she prepared to launch The Talk. On that show, being open about life as a mother was part of the job, and she chose to speak plainly at last.

A Son First, Then a Daughter

The couple’s first child, a son named Levi Hank, was born to Adler in October 2004. Their daughter Sawyer followed, born to Gilbert on August 2, 2007. Wikipedia, drawing on contemporary reporting, records those facts simply: Levi born to Adler in 2004, and a daughter, Sawyer Jane, born to Gilbert in August 2007. The children took the shared family name Gilbert-Adler, joining both parents’ names in one.

Sawyer’s earliest years were spent in Los Angeles in a home shaped by two television careers. No major source publishes details of her schooling or daily childhood, and this article does not repeat the guesses printed elsewhere. What the record does support is the general picture her mother has described in interviews over the years: a parent working to pass on honesty, kindness and authenticity, values Gilbert has named when asked what she hopes her children learn. Those words belong to Gilbert as a parent in general, not to any claim about Sawyer herself, and they are included here only as the family’s own stated outlook.

In August 2011, Gilbert announced that she and Adler had separated. A representative described the split as completely amicable, and Gilbert spoke about it with emotion on The Talk, saying she would always value their time together and that they had beautiful children and a lot of love for each other. Reports at the time and since describe the two continuing into the next chapter as co-parents, with Gilbert sharing custody of Levi and Sawyer with Adler. Sawyer was four years old when her parents parted, and the family’s handling of that change stayed, by design, out of the headlines.

A New Chapter: Linda Perry and a Younger Brother

After the separation, Gilbert began a relationship with Linda Perry, the singer and songwriter who fronted 4 Non Blondes and went on to write hit songs for artists including Christina Aguilera and Pink. Gilbert announced their engagement in April 2013, and the couple married on March 30, 2014. Perry thus became Sawyer’s stepmother, adding a third creative career, music, to a family already built on acting and television writing.

On February 28, 2015, Gilbert gave birth to a son, Rhodes Emilio Gilbert Perry, her child with Perry. Sawyer, then seven, gained a younger half-brother, and the family became a blended household of three children across two homes. Gilbert filed for legal separation from Perry on December 27, 2019, a fact recorded in court reporting and in her biography. As with the earlier split, the adults kept the children’s part in the story private, and no reliable source describes Sawyer’s own view of these changes. None is guessed at here.

Family connections reach wider still. Through Gilbert, Sawyer is part of a well known acting family: Sara Gilbert is the younger half-sister of Melissa Gilbert and Jonathan Gilbert, both known from Little House on the Prairie, which makes them Sawyer’s half-aunt and half-uncle. Her grandmother on that side, Barbara Cowan, and grandfather Harold Abeles complete a family line that has worked in American entertainment for two generations before her.

The Song Called Mama

Sawyer’s one widely reported public appearance came on August 2, 2019, which was also her twelfth birthday. That day Gilbert hosted her final episode of The Talk, the show she had created nine years earlier, and announced she was leaving to make time for other projects and for her three children. The episode carried tributes from her co-hosts and a standing ovation from the audience. Then came the surprise that Entertainment Tonight and other outlets reported in detail.

Sawyer took the stage with Linda Perry and told her mother that Gilbert thought they were going to play Shallow, the hit song from A Star Is Born, but that she did not think that was special enough. Instead, she had written her mother a song of her own. It was called Mama. With Perry at the piano, Sawyer sang her original song to Gilbert in front of the studio audience, and the farewell turned into a family moment that viewers still share online. The performance showed a clear musical confidence, which is perhaps no surprise in a child raised around a songwriter of Perry’s standing, but a single song at twelve is a moment, not a career.

That distinction matters, because weaker websites have built whole invented biographies on top of it, calling Sawyer a rising star singer with a professional path and printing claims about her identity, income and plans that no major source supports. Some of those claims touch on deeply personal matters that a young person has never addressed in any reputable outlet. This article does not repeat them. The confirmed record is the song, the date, the stage and the reason: a daughter honoring her mother on the day her mother closed a nine year chapter of work.

Growing Up Private, and What Is Not Known

Since 2019, Sawyer has returned to the private life her parents always kept for her. She turned 18 in August 2025, so she is now an adult, but adulthood has not brought a public profile with it, at least not one documented by major sources. There are no confirmed interviews with her, no verified public accounts promoted by her family, and no reputable reporting on her studies, work or plans. Claims that fill those gaps online, including figures for earnings and labels for her personal life, are unconfirmed and should be read with real caution.

There is a pattern across this family that deserves respect. Gilbert spent years protecting her own privacy while working in the most public of jobs, and then protected her children’s privacy the same way. Adler, for all her success, is likewise a behind the scenes figure who rarely appears in celebrity coverage. The result is that a young woman with two famous parents and a famous stepmother has been allowed to grow up as a person first. Whatever Sawyer Gilbert-Adler chooses to do next, in music, in television or far from both, the first reliable news of it should come from her.

FAQs

Who is Sawyer Gilbert-Adler?

Sawyer Jane Gilbert-Adler is the daughter of actress Sara Gilbert and producer Ali Adler, born on August 2, 2007. She is Sara Gilbert’s second child and is known publicly for one appearance, singing her own song Mama on The Talk in 2019.

Who are Sawyer Gilbert-Adler’s siblings?

Her older brother is Levi Hank Gilbert-Adler, born to Ali Adler in October 2004. Her younger half-brother is Rhodes Emilio Gilbert Perry, born in February 2015 to Sara Gilbert and Linda Perry.

What song did Sawyer sing on The Talk?

On Sara Gilbert’s farewell episode on August 2, 2019, Sawyer surprised her mother by singing an original song she had written called Mama, accompanied by her stepmother Linda Perry, instead of the cover song Gilbert expected.

Is Sawyer Gilbert-Adler a professional singer?

No major source confirms a professional singing career. Her 2019 performance was a one time family tribute on her mother’s show. Sites that describe a rising star career, or print personal claims about her, offer no reliable evidence, so those claims are unconfirmed.

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Final Thoughts

Sawyer Gilbert-Adler’s public story can be told in a few honest lines: born in Los Angeles in August 2007 to Sara Gilbert and Ali Adler, raised in a family of actors, writers and a songwriter, given a brother before her and a half-brother after her, and seen once, memorably, singing a song she wrote for her mother on live television. The rest of her story is hers, still being lived in private. That is not a gap in the record. It is the record working exactly as her parents intended, and this article is glad to leave it that way.

Featured photo: Sara Gilbert – photo by watchwithkristin, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons