Jane Seymour has finally confirmed the decades-long rumor that she and “Dr. Quinn” co-star Joe Lando were once a real-life couple.
The 75-year-old actress made the revelation during a panel at 90s Con over the weekend, telling the audience that she and Lando, 64, “really fell in love” while filming the Western drama that ran from 1993 to 1998. Seymour played Dr. Michaela “Mike” Quinn opposite Lando’s mountain man Byron Sully, and their on-screen chemistry became one of the show’s defining features.
“That’s a secret,” she shared with fans before quickly adding, “not a secret anymore.”
The romance began almost immediately. Seymour recalled that just days into filming, Lando drove her in his pickup truck to escape a flash flood — and the pair ended up sharing Mexican food and margaritas. “It took us, like, $5, and then we realized that, you know, we had actually fallen in love,” she said. “So everything you saw on ‘Dr. Quinn,’ certainly in the pilot, [was real].”
The relationship was short-lived, however. Lando “had a plan” for his life that included four children and a white picket fence, while Seymour was already a mother of two — daughter Katherine, now 44, and son Sean, now 41 — from her marriage to ex-husband David Flynn. The couple split before the series really found its footing.
Seymour later welcomed twins John and Kristopher, now 30, with her subsequent husband James Keach. At the 90s Con panel, she couldn’t resist a playful jab at her former flame, joking that she sure “showed him.”
Lando, meanwhile, fulfilled his vision precisely. He married Kirsten Barlow in 1997 and the couple had four children together: Jack, Christian, Kate, and William.
The breakup created genuine friction between the co-stars. Seymour first discussed the romance with the outlet in 2019, explaining that their real-life split helped fuel the “sexual tension that [they] wouldn’t have had if [they’d] been playing happy households or something.” The aftermath was genuinely painful for both performers.
“We didn’t actually talk to each other, other than in dialogue or making out for about six or seven years,” she revealed. “We, obviously, clearly loved one another and realized we couldn’t be actually in real-life together. I think we just played it [off] as Michaela and Sully.”
The series concluded with two television movies in 1999 and 2001, and the former couple eventually repaired their friendship. Lando was present at Seymour’s 75th birthday celebration this past April, and their bond was tested by genuine crisis when Los Angeles wildfires ravaged the region last year. Lando and his family took refuge at Seymour’s Malibu home.
“[She] allowed us to come over to her house and opened it up for us without any hesitation and, thank God, gave us someplace to come and sleep,” Lando told his Instagram followers in 2025, calling the ex-Bond girl an “angel.”
The pair’s most recent professional collaboration came in 2022, when they co-starred in the Lifetime movie “A Christmas Spark.” Seymour is currently engaged to musician John Zambetti.
