Katherine Heigl recently stepped out at a public event for the first time in two years.
The 27 Dresses star, 47, made a rare appearance at the Wine, Women & Shoes benefit event supporting Big Dog Ranch House in Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, March 8. Heigl looked radiant in a short-sleeved, knee-length dress featuring a pastel blue, green and yellow floral design. She paired the dress with a pale yellow Chanel bag and her short hair styled in an updo.
Katherine’s mother, Nancy Heigl, also attended the event, sporting a beige-colored ensemble. The pair held puppies as they posed for photos together.
The event marked Katherine’s first public outing since early 2024. The One for the Money actress and her family — including Josh Kelley and their kids, Naleigh, 16, Adalaide, 13, and Joshua, 8 — have lived a quiet life since they moved to a ranch in Utah in 2010.
“Sometimes I ask myself if I should be in the game, if I should be hustling, if I should be more ambitious. And I just think I really don’t want to,” she told E! News of their life in April 2025. “If you don’t want that, then don’t do it, just because you think that’s what you’re supposed to do, or that’s what society expects from you.”
Heigl, whose last acting credit was Netflix’s Firefly Lane in 2023, exclusively told Us Weekly in May 2025 that she had already reached the height of her career.
“I wasn’t thinking about [aging] in my 20s, right? In my 20s, I was sort of at the height of my career, and I was getting to do all the roles I had always wanted to be able to do,” Heigl said at the time. “I started as a child actor, but by the time I got into my mid to late teens, you know, I was dying to be the romantic lead. I was dying to do some comedy. So I was so excited and on cloud nine getting to do what I had been sort of hustling to do for so many years. And you don’t think about the expiration date on it.”
Heigl, who first rose to fame playing Izzie Stevens on Grey’s Anatomy, said she changed her perspective when she reached age 40.
“When I turned 40 I realized, ‘Oh, that’s pretty much over.’ Like, there’s a young generation that’s coming up and I had my time and it was glorious, and it’s kind of done now,” she continued. “And not to say that I can’t be the romantic lead in something at 46 — that women in their 40s don’t have a romantic love life or that they aren’t funny or that, you know, they can’t be the lead of a story. Of course they can. I am still the star of my own life. I find it interesting and compelling. I feel like others would, as well. And I feel like so many women in their 40s and 50s and 60s have compelling, interesting lives that we’d all be interested in seeing.”
