Most people first heard the name Heidi Van Pelt in 2001, when the 33-year-old vegan chef married a 17-year-old former child star — and set off one of the most talked-about age-gap controversies of early-2000s Hollywood. The groom was Taran Noah Smith, who had spent eight years playing the youngest son on Home Improvement. The marriage lasted six years, produced a vegan food company, a bitter business lawsuit, and then silence: both of them walked away from public life.
So who is Heidi Van Pelt, really? Beyond the tabloid headlines, she was a certified nutritional counselor, a radio host, and an early voice in the plant-based food movement — years before veganism went mainstream. This is the full, verified story: the marriage, the business, the divorce, and where she is now.
Who Is Heidi Van Pelt?
Before she became famous as someone’s wife, Heidi Van Pelt had her own lane. She was part of the Los Angeles vegan and animal-rights scene in the late 1990s, a community that was small, passionate, and far from the cultural force it is today. Through connections with vegan activists in LA, she moved deeper into plant-based living — not as a trend, but as a conviction built around health, ethics, and sustainable living.
She took her interest seriously enough to study it formally, completing online courses at the American Academy of Nutrition and becoming a certified Nutritional Counselor. In Los Angeles she co-hosted a radio program called Raw Health, where she talked vegan cooking and healthy living to a growing audience of listeners who were curious about plant-based diets long before every grocery store had an oat-milk aisle.
That background matters because it explains the marriage that made her famous. She didn’t meet Taran Noah Smith on a red carpet. They met through mutual friends in the vegan community — two people who bonded over shared values first, and everything else second.
The Marriage to Taran Noah Smith
On April 27, 2001 — shortly after his 17th birthday — Taran Noah Smith married Heidi Van Pelt. She was 16 years his senior. The wedding drew immediate, intense media scrutiny. A 17-year-old marrying a 33-year-old was always going to make headlines, and the coverage ranged from fascinated to openly hostile.
The couple insisted the relationship was genuine. What they shared, friends said, was a common philosophy: healthy living, veganism, and a desire to build something outside the Hollywood machine that had raised him. For Smith, who had been working on television since he was seven, the appeal of a life defined by something other than fame was obvious.
But the marriage never escaped controversy. There were legal fights over Smith’s $1.5 million trust fund — money he gained control of at 18 and accused his parents of squandering (his mother, Candy Bennici, denied it, saying the money was in a trust they couldn’t have touched, and that the courts had protected it). The trust-fund battle, the age gap, and the sheer oddity of a teenage ex-actor marrying a woman twice his age kept the couple in the tabloids for years.
Taran Noah Smith: The Home Improvement Years
To understand the marriage, you have to understand what Smith was walking away from. Born April 8, 1984, in San Francisco, Taran Noah Smith was cast at age seven as Marcus “Mark” Taylor — the youngest of Tim Allen’s three TV sons on Home Improvement, the ABC sitcom that ran from 1991 to 1999 and was one of the biggest shows of the decade.
Smith appeared in 203 episodes. He won two Young Artist Awards (in 1992 and 1994) and was nominated twice more. By any measure, he was one of the most successful child actors of the 1990s. And then, at 16, he quit. “I started Home Improvement when I was seven, and the show ended when I was 16,” he said in a 2001 interview. “I never had the chance to decide what I wanted to do with my life. When I was 16, I knew that I didn’t want to act anymore.”
He had small roles after — voice work on Batman Beyond, a TV movie called Ebbie, Little Bigfoot 2 — but his heart wasn’t in it. He graduated high school at 15, briefly attended USC’s film school, and dropped out. When he married Heidi Van Pelt at 17, he was a teenager with a famous past, a contested trust fund, and no clear plan for the future. She offered a different kind of life: one built around food, ethics, and business rather than auditions.
Playfood: The Vegan Business They Built Together
In 2005, four years into the marriage, the couple founded Playfood — a California-based company making non-dairy cheese and organic foods, plus a vegan restaurant. At the time, vegan cheese was a niche within a niche; the idea of building a business around it looked either visionary or quixotic, depending on your view of soy-based cheddar.
Playfood reflected everything the couple claimed to stand for: plant-based eating, organic sourcing, and an ethical food system. It got real attention inside the vegan community. For a while, it looked like the marriage’s second act — proof that the controversial couple could build something substantive together.
Then the marriage fell apart, and the business became the battlefield.
Why Heidi Van Pelt and Taran Noah Smith Divorced
The couple filed for divorce on February 2, 2007, ending six years of marriage. The split was messy. Smith filed a lawsuit and sought a temporary injunction against his former wife and business partner, accusing her of channeling funds from their company, Playfood Inc., into her own separate business, Playfood Manufacturing LLC. Heidi, for her part, maintained she had done most of the work building the company.
Public accusations flew in both directions — dishonesty, financial mismanagement, infidelity. The divorce proceedings dragged the business down with the marriage. One notable consequence: the ordeal pushed Smith to reconcile with his parents, with whom he’d been feuding over the trust fund. He later admitted they’d been trying to protect his money, not steal it.
By the time the dust settled, Playfood was effectively finished as a joint venture, and both parties retreated from public view.
Where Is Heidi Van Pelt Now?
Since the divorce, Heidi Van Pelt has kept an exceptionally low profile — a deliberate choice, by all accounts. She stepped back from media attention and, according to people familiar with her circle, continued working in health and wellness outside of California. She never wrote a tell-all, never did the reality-TV circuit, never tried to convert notoriety into a brand.
In that sense, she’s in good company. Kitty Toombs, the widow of wrestling legend Roddy Piper, similarly chose a quiet life over the spotlight. For women who became famous through marriage to famous men, disappearing can be the most decisive statement of all.
Smith, too, left public life behind. He volunteered doing disaster relief in the Philippines in 2014, became the Technical Manager for the Community Submersibles Project (where he teaches people to pilot submarines), and has said he values privacy and introspection over fame. Neither of them has shown any interest in revisiting the story.
Clearing Up a Common Confusion
One thing worth stating plainly: Heidi Van Pelt was married to Taran Noah Smith — the Home Improvement child actor born in 1984. She is frequently confused online with people connected to Taran Killam, the Saturday Night Live comedian born in 1982. They are two entirely different people. Killam was married to actress Cobie Smulders; he has no connection to Heidi Van Pelt or to Home Improvement. If you’ve seen the names mixed up, now you know.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Heidi Van Pelt?
Heidi Van Pelt is a vegan chef, certified Nutritional Counselor, and former radio host who became publicly known as the ex-wife of Home Improvement child star Taran Noah Smith. Before the marriage, she was active in the Los Angeles vegan and animal-rights community and co-hosted a radio show called Raw Health.
How old was Heidi Van Pelt when she married Taran Noah Smith?
She was 33 and he was 17 when they married on April 27, 2001 — a 16-year age difference that drew widespread media controversy at the time.
Why did Heidi Van Pelt and Taran Noah Smith divorce?
They filed for divorce on February 2, 2007, after six years of marriage. The split involved a legal battle over their vegan food company, Playfood, with Smith accusing Van Pelt of diverting company funds into her own separate business. Both sides made public accusations of financial mismanagement.
What was Playfood?
Playfood was a California-based vegan food company founded by the couple in 2005, producing non-dairy cheese and organic foods, along with a vegan restaurant. It collapsed amid the couple’s divorce and legal disputes.
Where is Heidi Van Pelt today?
She has maintained a very low profile since the 2007 divorce, reportedly continuing health and wellness work outside of California and staying out of the media entirely.
Was Heidi Van Pelt married to Taran Killam?
No. This is a common mix-up. Heidi Van Pelt was married to Taran Noah Smith (the Home Improvement actor). Taran Killam is a different person — the SNL comedian married to Cobie Smulders.
The Takeaway
Heidi Van Pelt’s story is usually told as a punchline about an age-gap marriage. The fuller picture is more interesting: a woman who was already building a life in vegan nutrition and media before fame found her, who co-founded a plant-based food company years before it was fashionable, and who — when it all fell apart — chose privacy over publicity. The marriage made her famous. Walking away made her herself again.
