Tom Selleck is a father to two children, a son, Kevin (whose mother is Selleck’s first wife, Jacqueline Ray), and a daughter, Hannah (who he had with his second wife, Jillie Mack). Being a father is a role he takes seriously, and it changed how he lived his life. This included retreating to a ranch and putting his family first. “I’m a fairly private person,” Selleck told People in 2020. “And I’ve always treasured the balance between work and time with my family. It’s always about them.”
He is an exceptionally supportive and encouraging dad, which is perhaps why Hannah has been able to focus on her passions, rather than pursuing a career in something that didn’t leave her feeling fulfilled. She may be all grown up and carving her own path (about as far from the entertainment industry as you could imagine), but the “Blue Bloods” actor will always have a special place in her life.
Now that Hannah is an adult, people want to know who she is. What does she do for fun? What was it like growing up with a famous dad, and how did her parents successfully shield her from the glitz and glamor of Hollywood? By all accounts, Hannah Selleck had a normal childhood. She’s gorgeous and talented; this is everything you need to know about her.
Hannah Selleck was raised away from the limelight
Some celebrity children grow up in busy cities, constantly surrounded by the paparazzi, but Hannah Selleck was not one of them. Her parents decided to move to a 63-acre avocado ranch in Hidden Valley, California. It was the perfect place to raise their daughter, away from the limelight and the paparazzi.
“We both thought it was the best environment for her to grow up,” Mack told People in 2012. Letting their daughter have all the open space was not just a great decision for her childhood; it also impacted Tom Selleck’s life, and it was perhaps one of the best moves for him to relocate to a quieter part of the world. Here, he could take a break from a demanding career to tend to his farm and relax. “I live on a 63-acre avocado ranch. So I like to get outside and work on the farm, from fixing roads to clearing brush,” he said in an interview with Good Housekeeping. “I hate going to the gym, so sweating outdoors sure beats sitting on a stationary bike staring at my navel. And I work cheaper than anyone I could hire to do it.”
“My relationships and my ranch keep me sane,” the actor told People in 2020.
Hannah Selleck is a successful equestrian
Hannah Selleck is incredibly passionate about horses and has devoted a career to working with them. Rather than pursuing something traditional like a job in law or finance, she chose to explore a different path, and she is now a successful equestrian. But this was not the route she had initially envisioned for herself, and she went to university to get a communications degree. She had planned to work in public relations, but would later realize this would not make her happy in the long term, and she could not give up her dreams.
Riding horses can be dangerous, and it is a sport that can result in serious injury. Rather than deter her, Tom Selleck and Jillie Mack have always been one of their daughter’s biggest supporters. “They just wanted me to find something I was passionate about. They wanted me to find my love and pursue that,” Hannah Selleck told The Hollywood Reporter. Children of successful parents may feel they are living in their shadow, especially when they have similar interests because the media will automatically compare their work. This was not something Hannah had to contend with. In the same interview, she spoke about her relatively normal childhood and how working with horses helped her find something that was her own, unrelated to her parents’ achievements.
She has a side business that involves horses
We have mentioned that Hannah Selleck chose a career that involved working with horses. But she was not content to stop at only being a great rider. She also had big ideas for a business and would launch her own company to focus on breeding. This is not something that just anyone can do because it requires a lot of knowledge, time, dedication, and, unsurprisingly, money.
She told The Hollywood Reporter about her project: “I’m focusing mainly on my career and my goals competing. And I have a small breeding program in California where I’m developing young horses to bring along and sell. It’s a business that so far has been really great and a great experience.” In the same interview, she also acknowledged how expensive horses are (seriously, the price for one of these majestic animals could go into the millions). So, it’s good that she has a successful father who believes in her enough to invest.
“My dad encouraged and invested in this breeding operation,” Hannah said. “They have been very supportive. The prices of horses have become astronomical.”
Tom Selleck encouraged her career move and has been supportive
When you think of Tom Selleck, his role in “Magnum P.I.” may come to mind. Or perhaps his striking features and noticeable mustache? But not everyone knows what he is like as a father to his daughter, Hannah Selleck. From what she has said about him, it is safe to assume he is a pretty great dad.
After years of working steadily in the entertainment industry, Selleck decided to slow down and step away so that he could focus on raising his daughter. “I worked 90 hours a week and did a movie every break,” he told People. “I quit ‘Magnum’ to have a family. It took a long time to get off the train, but I try very hard to have balance.” The family then relocated to their avocado ranch.
This is not the only time Selleck has proven he was willing to put family first, and Hannah Selleck has been vocal about how supportive of her endeavors he has been. Some may think leaving a potential career in public relationships to focus on working with horses was a risky move, but one of the reasons Hannah could do this was because of how much her dad believes in her. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she discussed how her father had encouraged her in various aspects of her life, including her breeding program.
Education was always important to her parents
What is it like growing up with two successful individuals who have pursued careers in the arts? Would you assume the education requirements for Hannah Selleck would be different from her peers because of her parents and their respective professions? If you have ever been curious about how she grew up, we can tell you that for Tom Selleck and Jillie Mack, educating their daughter was always a priority.
This meant homeschooling was off the table. “My parents encouraged me to stay in school and not do the home-schooling route, which many younger riders did,” Hannah told The Hollywood Reporter. “I stayed in school regularly even though I missed quite a bit of class to travel and compete, but I attended school dances and went to prom and I was able to b alance it. I am happy about that.”
After graduating from high school, Hannah attended Loyola Marymount University, where she earned a degree in communications. However, she didn’t end up working in this field. “Once I finished university and decided I wanted to pursue my passion, my father said he would help support me but that I had to turn professional, letting go of my amateur status, and work for top professionals in the sport in order to learn my craft,” she told Palm Beach Illustrated of shifting her focus to becoming an equestrian.
She had a lot of interests as a child
Hannah Selleck was introduced to horse riding at a young age, and she was just 4 years old when she got into the saddle. Although, at the time, she would not know she wanted to do this professionally. Her parents were eager to let her experience a range of activities and hobbies.
“My parents just encouraged me to try all different things — dance, ice skating, soccer, lots of things that kids do,” Hannah told The Hollywood Reporter. When she was a pre-teen, she became more serious about riding and ballet, and at 14, she would have to decide which to focus on (the dedication and commitment that each of her passions takes means she would not have the time to do both). Ultimately, the horses won, and she became a professional equestrian. “My love was with the horses. That’s when I became very serious about it,” she confessed. It was a smart move because her life would look very different now if she were to have chosen ballet.
Hannah Selleck has worked hard for all she’s achieved
Growing up in the Selleck household afforded Hannah Selleck many opportunities. Her father’s career had provided him with enough wealth that he could support his family and Hannah could partake in various activities, including horse riding (a notoriously expensive sport). She has been vocal about her father’s support for her career, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t work hard to achieve everything she has.
When she shifted from working in public relations to becoming a professional rider, she did what she could to earn enough money. “I knew I had to find a way to support myself as a rider, so that was when it was time for me to be a working student, an assistant, and to take any apprenticeship opportunities that I could find,” she told Equestrian Living.
She may be passionate about horses and her career, but that doesn’t mean it’s all fun and games. “For me, it’s always work,” she told Palm Beach Illustrated. “It’s not like idle trail riding. We’re always working for a goal, and we prepare for weeks for that one to two minutes in the arena. I’m always thinking about what we need to do to improve.”
She’s a great dancer
Hannah Selleck is a well-rounded woman, and she’s also a great dancer. She gave up ballet to pursue riding but knows how to move. Her friend, Julia Loomis, offered up information about Hannah in an interview with Palm Beach Illustrated in 2019, and her comments make it sound like she’s a lot of fun to hang out with.
“She is outgoing and the life of the party; [I’m] a bit reserved and introverted,” Loomis said of how different they were. “But we also have passions for culture and dance, her mother being a former dancer … when we are together, we can go from casual, quiet dining to the American Ballet Theatre gala, to dancing, to a film. I think we just try to cover as much as possible until Hannah has to wake up at dawn to ride.”
Indeed, Hannah is not the only good dancer in the family. Her mother was taking part in the West End musical “Cats” in 1984. That’s when her parents met, and Tom Selleck has been married to Jillie Mack since 1987.
Hannah Selleck has a special connection to England
Hannah Selleck’s mother is British (we mentioned that she was performing on stage in London’s West End when she met Tom Selleck). While it is entirely possible that Jillie Mack would miss her homeland after she relocated to be with Tom, she has been exceptionally happy living on the family’s ranch. ”It’s the best place to raise a child,” she told AARP. “It was such the wisdom of Tom. He knew he needed to buy back his anonymity, to replenish the soul.”
Still, because Mack is British, Hannah has been able to enjoy the benefit of having two nationalities. She’s spent time in England to connect with her mother’s side of the family and explore different terrain. She has many beautiful memories from her visits, some of which she revealed in an interview with Palm Beach Illustrated. “The English countryside is so stunning, especially from horseback,” she said. “It is so exhilarating, galloping over miles of land, jumping the natural obstacles like ditches, gates, and hedges.”
She’s a daddy’s girl
Hannah Selleck and her famous father are incredibly close. In her interviews, she speaks about him with what can be described as fondness, and her father has done the same. “We’ve always had a very strong bond because, luckily, I was spared most of the adolescent drama in our house,” the actor told Good Housekeeping in a 2007 interview.
He did acknowledge that at times, Jillie Mack and Hannah would have disagreements, but he was seldom involved — but that is not to say he and Mack did not always support each other. “We don’t do anything or make any decisions without consulting each other,” he told the Daily News in 1999.
Selleck also used the interview with Good Housekeeping to praise his daughter’s accomplishments as an equestrian. “These days, we still see a lot of her, because she continues to be a very accomplished equestrian, and we travel around to attend her competitions. In that world, I’m not the celebrity, she is,” he said.
Her love for horses has resulted in several injuries
Horse riding is expensive and dangerous, and Hannah Selleck has been hurt. This includes fracturing her leg during a competition in 2018 after things did not go as planned. However, she views herself as fortunate because she has not sustained worse injuries and can still pursue her passions. That does not mean that the recovery process after breaking bones is not grueling, and it takes mental and physical strength to get back to where you need to be.
“Being told that I might not run again was pretty intense,” she told Modern Luxury Palm Beach of the injury that left her with a broken tibia and fibula. But rather than being told she could not do something and accept it, Hannah was determined to return to riding as soon as possible.
“I have always been a very mentally strong rider,” she told the publication. “I have always thought you can just push through everything — so it was shifting my thinking that restorative yoga is just as important as my cardio. That shift is a good thing for sure.” Luckily, the combination of hard work and dedication allowed Selleck to recover and continue to ride.
She’s endorsed a product that makes clothing smell fresh
It’s no secret that Hannah Selleck’s first love is horses, but she’s also comfortable in front of the cameras. And while it may seem unlikely she will follow in Tom Selleck’s footsteps and pursue an acting career, she has lent her image to a campaign — and she looked stunning in it. Hannah became the face of the product Reviver in 2013. She posed for a series of photos, including one of her working out, eating meat in a gorgeous dress, and posing in lingerie surrounded by the packaging.
But why did she choose to partner with the brand, and what about the product drew her to it? “When I found out about Reviver — it was amazing,” she said (via Daily Mail). “Now I use it every day after leaving the barn to ensure that my clothes smell fresh. I also keep a Reviver swipe in my purse to use when I’m out at the bars and clubs and around friends who smoke … it’s like a breath mint for my clothes.”
