Chyler Leigh

Leigh was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, on April 10, 1982,^[2] to Yvonne Norton and Robert Potts.^[3][4] She grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where her parents ran a weight-loss business.^[5] The business went bankrupt when she was eight and her parents' marriage ended when she was 12. She, her mother, and her older brother, former actor Christopher Khayman Lee, moved to Miami,^[6] where her mother remarried her first husband. Leigh was estranged from her father for many years after her parents' divorce, but they have since reconciled.^[5]

Leigh was in eighth grade when she started modeling. She acted in local television commercials and Hall Pass, a syndicated teen news show. In 1999, Leigh and her mother moved to Los Angeles to be in acting. At 16, she passed the California High School Proficiency Exam.^[7]

Leigh began acting at an early age and debuted in film at 15 with1997's Kickboxing Academy (1997). She started hosting local TV shows and modeling; in 2001, Leigh nabbed the lead role in the box office success, Not Another Teen Movie, as Janey Briggs opposite Chris Evans. She also appeared with the cast of the movie in Marilyn Manson's music video "Tainted Love", a song which was in the film. She was 65th on the Maxim Hot 100 Women of 2002.^[9] In 2002, Leigh was cast in two short-lived TV series: Girls Club, in which she played lawyer Sarah Mickle, and That '80s Show, playing punk rocker June Tuesday. She then became a series regular on the ABC legal drama The Practice, but was let go at the end of the season due to budget cuts. She joined the cast of Reunion in September 2005.

In Grey's Anatomy, Leigh first appeared as a woman in Joe's bar who was noticed by Derek Shepherd during the final two episodes of the third season, and her character is later revealed to be Lexie Grey, the younger half-sister of the titular character.^[10] Leigh was made an official series regular for season four and remained so until the eighth-season finale, as Leigh chose to depart from the show after five years to spend more time with her family.^[11] She makes music with her husband Nathan West (East of Eli), under the name "WestLeigh". They have performed covers and original songs. In 2015 for their 13th anniversary, they wrote "Love Lit the Sky".^[12][13] On Valentine's Day 2017, they released the single "Nowhere". Leigh has taken part in several of her husband's tours.^{[clarification needed][14][15][16][17]} On June 18, 2017, a single "Spirit of Samba" by Laurent Voulzy was released featuring Leigh, Nina Miranda, Luisa Maita, and Eloisia; in France, it reached the 99th position on the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique chart.^[18][19]

From 2015 to 2021, Leigh starred in the CBS/The CW DC Comics television series Supergirl as Alex Danvers, the elder adopted sister of the titular character and a scientist and government agent at the Department of Extranormal Operations. She reprised the role on Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow during crossover events Crisis on Earth-X, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and "Armageddon".^[20] She made her directorial debut with the season six episode "Prom Again!".^[21] In April 2021, Leigh returned to Grey's Anatomy for the episode "Breathe".^[22] Since 2023, she has co-starred in the Hallmark Channel series The Way Home with Andie MacDowell.^[23]

In 2002, Leigh married fellow actor Nathan West in Alaska.^[24] The couple worked together in 2000 on the television series 7th Heaven on The WB and The CW, playing Mary Camden's (Jessica Biel) troubled friends Frankie and Johnnie. Leigh and West have three children–a son and two daughters (born in 2003,^[25] 2006,^[26] and 2009^[25]). In 2026, Chyler revealed that she and Nathan had split.^[27]

Leigh was a Christian and credited her faith in 2007-2008 and a "really awesome church" with giving her husband and her "a reason to live".^[24][28] Her current beliefs held are that there is a Source “Witchy WooWoo and all.” She supports The Thirst Project, a nonprofit organization in America, which aims to bring safe drinking water to communities around the world.^[29] In 2019, Leigh revealed that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder a decade earlier.^[30] In mid 2020, she published a statement on the Create Change website, an advocacy website she cofounded, in which she expressed an emotional connection with her Supergirl character's coming-out scene. Several websites and media outlets, especially those connected with LGBTQ advocacy, interpreted the statement as Leigh's own coming-out about her sexuality.^{[31][32][33][34][35][36]}

Leigh and her family were living in Los Angeles including in Sherman Oaks,^[28] but split their time between Vancouver and Nashville.^[37] During mid-2020, Leigh contracted COVID-19; she described her experience in an article published to createchange.me on October 14, 2020:

I lost about a month's worth of time, laying in bed, waving to my children in the hallway with a mask on so they didn't see how sick I was from COVID-19. Almost "game-over" sick. The only time I had with my husband was spent six feet apart on our bedroom balcony in the morning for a soul-lifting hour to just be with one another or when he donned his mask coming in the room to take care of me, bravely bringing food and Gatorade (which half the time I wasn't able to taste). Golden moments in the midst of darkness. I will say I'm incredibly lucky, though. By the grace of God, no one else got sick... although there were a few occasions it almost seemed necessary, I didn't have to go to the hospital. I think getting through a sickness of that magnitude definitely earned me a level up. My body defeated what I thought was impossible and I got a proper restart.^[38]