Lisa Maxwell’s Family: All About Her Daughter Beau Jessup & More
Beau Jessup, daughter of English actress and Loose Women panelist Lisa Maxwell, has died at 27 years old. She was enrolled at the Columbia Journalism School, which announced her death on its website on November 9.
Maxwell and her husband, Paul, haven’t yet spoken out about their daughter’s death. In September 2026, Maxwell wrote about how “proud” she was of her daughter pursuing a career in journalism. Learn more about Beau’s life as well as Maxwell’s family below.
Who was Lisa Maxwell’s daughter?
Beau grew up in London alongside her mother, who was working in television. Shortly before her death, Beau was featured in Columbia’s student interview series, explaining how the circumstances of her upbringing led to her interest in journalism.
“As the daughter of a television actress, I grew up with an unusual awareness of the distance between people’s lives and the stories told about them,” she said. “I saw how journalism could illuminate someone’s experiences, but also how those experiences could be distorted, simplified, or transformed into a public narrative over which the subject had very little control. I was curious, from quite a young age, about who gets to tell people’s stories, and what happens when those stories enter the public domain.”
Before enrolling in Columbia’s M.S. program, which she was set to graduate from in May 2027, Beau studied Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Writing for Performance at the University of Cambridge. Her time at each “shaped [her] interest in cultural journalism — particularly how institutions, identity, and social expectations influence the way we live and understand one another.”
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She got started in journalism early in life. At 16 years old, Beau launched a weekly column for my local newspaper, “which used recipes as a starting point for conversations with older people.” She would soon create SpecialName, a website that helped Chinese parents choose English names for their children. It led to her 2017 TEDx Talk called “How I Named 250,000 Chinese Babies.”
“With Community Bakes, I was the journalist, using a platform to represent other people’s experiences,” Beau explained. “With SpecialName, I became the story, watching my own intentions and experiences interpreted and repackaged by journalists around the world. Together, those experiences gave me an early appreciation of both the power and the responsibility of storytelling.”
At Cambridge, Beau wrote her first play, The Sandbag. At the time of her interview with Columbia, she was in the process of developing it for the stage, aiming to arrange a table reading. She was also regularly posting writing to her Substack account.
“Congratulations guys!” Maxwell wrote on X when her daughter started at Columbia in fall 2026. “Especially my daughter @BeauJessup over in NYC making us all super proud.”
Congratulations guys! Especially my daughter @BeauJessup over in NYC making us all super proud. ❤️
— Lisa Maxwell : (@thelisamaxwell) September 6, 2026
Who is Lisa Maxwell’s husband?
Prior to their 2014 wedding, the couple had been together for 17 years, according to The Mirror. Paul is a sculptor who keeps a low profile. The couple moved from London to rural Gloucestershire while raising their daughter.
In 2012, Maxwell told told The Mirror that her relationship was close to ending after two miscarriages in 2008. She explained that leaving her show The Bill helped save their romance. She proposed on Leap Year Day in 2012.
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“I got him in a headlock,” Maxwell said of the proposal. “We’d just been very intimate and he knew it was coming.”
She said that trading The Bill for Loose Women also helped her be there for her daughter. “I’m not as ambitious as I was,” she noted. “I like acting, but I love doing Loose Women, I’ve got lots of different hats on. You’ve got to make it work. I can’t just pack a bag and b****r off. I’ve got responsibilities. I love the fact my daughter now takes me for granted. I’m like a normal mum.”
