Zeppelin Adele Gilford is the daughter of Friday Night Lights actor Zach Gilford and actress Kiele Sanchez. She was born on November 29, 2017, in Los Angeles, via gestational surrogacy, and she is 8 years old as of 2026. Her birth came after years of pregnancy loss that the couple shared in rare, measured detail, and her story is far more layered than her unusual name suggests.
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At a Glance
| Full Name | Zeppelin Adele Gilford |
| Date of Birth | November 29, 2017 |
| Age (April 2026) | 8 years old |
| Birthplace | Los Angeles, California |
| Father | Zach Gilford |
| Mother | Kiele Sanchez |
| Sibling | Revel Gilford (born 2020) |
| Born Via | Gestational Surrogacy |
What the Name Zeppelin Adele Actually Means
The name has no connection to Led Zeppelin, and Adele is not a nod to the British singer. Zach and Kiele confirmed both when they announced her birth.
They chose Zeppelin because they genuinely loved it. Zach and Kiele had been calling the baby by that name since six weeks into the pregnancy, well before they knew the baby’s gender. Zach told People that names carry a personality of their own, and this one felt right to them from the start.
Adele is a family tribute. It honors Zach’s grandmother, one of the first people in his family that Kiele was introduced to after they got serious. Both of them were close to her.
Her Parents: Zach Gilford and Kiele Sanchez
Zach Gilford, born January 14, 1982, in Evanston, Illinois, is best known for playing Matt Saracen on NBC’s Friday Night Lights. More recently, he played serial killer Elias Voit on Criminal Minds: Evolution (Paramount+, 2022-2025), and has appeared in Midnight Mass (Netflix), Good Girls (NBC), and The Purge: Anarchy.
Kiele Sanchez, born October 13, 1977, in Chicago, Illinois, is of Puerto Rican descent. She was previously married to screenwriter and director Zach Helm before meeting Gilford. Audiences know her from Lost, The Glades, Kingdom, Station 19, and Criminal Minds: Evolution, where she played Sydney Voit alongside Zach’s character.
How They Met
They first crossed paths in early 2010 on the set of the ABC pilot The Matadors, a show that was never picked up. Both were in other relationships at the time. Zach later wrote about it in a letter to their wedding photographer Jonas Peterson, simply describing their first meeting as the moment he knew they had to spend their lives together.
They got engaged in December 2011 and married on December 29, 2012, in Northern California wine country, in a ceremony with only 74 guests. It was held under an old oak tree the couple had specifically chosen the venue for. Friday Night Lights co-star Jesse Plemons, one of Zach’s closest friends, played guitar and sang a song that held personal meaning to the couple as Kiele walked down the aisle. Zach told Us Weekly that he and Kiele had both cried just listening to Plemons’ rehearsal voicemail: “His soul is a very special one.”
The Losses Before Zeppelin Was Born
In August 2015, Zach and Kiele announced they were expecting their first child, a baby boy due in November. On October 9, 2015, around eight months into the pregnancy, Kiele suffered a late-term miscarriage.
They named their son Winter.
Kiele later wrote about it in a personal essay for The Hollywood Reporter in 2016:
“My son, Winter. The amount of pain I felt consumed me. Every day it bit at me. Chewed on me. Swallowed me. I felt heavy and hollow.”
At the time, she was in production on Kingdom, where her character Lisa was also pregnant. The show’s creator, Byron Balasco, asked what she wanted to do with the storyline. She told him she could not imagine playing anything other than exactly what she was living through. Her real loss was written into the show. She later described channeling that grief on camera as the most cathartic experience of her life.
The Second Loss That Was Never Reported
What very few articles have addressed is that Winter was not the only son they lost.
On February 14, 2021, Zach posted a tribute on Twitter for the family dog, Pippen, who had passed away. In that post, he wrote:
“Every moment from meeting my amazing wife @TheKieleSanchez, the loss of our two sons, the birth of our daughter, and our newest son.”
Only Winter had ever been publicly reported. That post, from Zach’s own account, confirmed a second pregnancy loss the couple never spoke about publicly. No details about that second loss have been shared.
Born via Surrogate: The Arrival of Zeppelin Adele
After losing Winter and a second undisclosed son, Zach and Kiele turned to gestational surrogacy. Zach Gilford’s daughter, Zeppelin Adele, arrived on November 29, 2017, in Los Angeles.
The couple confirmed her birth to People magazine:
“It’s been a long, painful journey for us. Zeppelin is the light of our lives.”
And separately: “We have always wanted to be parents, and Zeppelin has made our dreams come true.”
In a 2018 interview with Us Weekly, Zach spoke about watching Kiele step into motherhood for the first time:
“My wife isn’t like anyone I’ve ever met in my life. I think when people meet her they just fall in love with her. I feel like she’s taught me how to love. You just see her looking at this baby and you just know she’s a mama lion and nothing will ever happen to this kid.”
Her Younger Brother, Revel
In 2020, Kiele and Zach welcomed a second child, a son named Revel. The birth came while Zach was away filming Midnight Mass during the COVID-19 pandemic, under strict on-set restrictions that kept him from leaving the production.
He talked about it on SiriusXM’s The Julia Cunningham Show in 2025:
“It was during the pandemic we shot it. I had to miss the birth of my son to shoot it, so I was in the headspace of, ‘I suck. I don’t want to be here.'”
As of April 2026, Revel is 5 years old. Zeppelin is 8.
The Divorce in 2025
On April 18, 2025, Zach filed for divorce from Kiele Sanchez after 12 years of marriage. Court documents obtained by TMZ cited irreconcilable differences. He did not list a specific date of separation, noting it as “TBD.”
From the court filing:
- Zach requested joint legal and physical custody of both Zeppelin and Revel
- He included a request for spousal support for Kiele
- Neither parent publicly addressed the separation
By November 2025, Zach was confirmed to be in a relationship with his Criminal Minds: Evolution co-star Liana Liberato, 30, with a representative confirming the news to Us Weekly. The two had met during Season 17 of the show in 2024.
Where Is Zeppelin Adele Gilford Now?
As of April 2026, Kiele Sanchez and Zach Gilford’s daughter is 8 years old and living in Los Angeles with her younger brother Revel. Neither parent has ever shared details about her schooling, her routine, or what she is like as a person. That boundary has held since the day she was born, and it has not shifted through a divorce, a new relationship, or any of the press coverage that followed the family over the years.
She arrived after two sons who did not survive. Her name was settled before they knew if she was a boy or a girl. Her middle name is a piece of family history. When she was born, her father described the moment in the only way he knew how: the end of a long, painful journey, and the light of their lives.
Eight years on, that framing still stands.
