Claire Meade

Claire Meade
Ugly Betty character
Judith Light as Claire Meade
First appearance	"The Lyin', the Watch and the Wardrobe" (episode 1.05)
Last appearance	"Hello Goodbye" (episode 4.20)
Created by	Donald Todd
Portrayed by	Judith Light
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Entrepreneur Socialite
Title	Board member (at Stuyvesant Memorial Hospital) Owner of Mode Magazine Senior vice president (at Meade Publications) Former Editor-in-Chief of Hot Flash
Family	Grandpa Jack (father; deceased)
Spouse(s)	Bradford Meade (husband; 2 children; deceased)
Significant other(s)	Calvin "Cal" Hartley (former lover; 1 child)
Children	Alexis Meade (daughter, with Bradford) Daniel Meade (son, with Bradford) Tyler Meade-Hartley (son, with Cal)
Relatives	Daniel Meade, Jr. (grandson, via Alexis) Molly Meade (daughter-in-law; deceased)

Claire Meade is a fictional character in the American dramedy series Ugly Betty, portrayed by Judith Light.

Light's performance as Claire has resulted in a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards, when Claire was a recurring regular in season one. She was updated to a primary castmember in the second season.

Claire is the late Bradford Meade's ex-wife and the mother of both Daniel and Alexis. In "Sofia's Choice", Claire mentioned she and Bradford were married for 38 years (since 1969). Claire is introduced in the episode "The Lyin', the Watch and the Wardrobe", when Daniel visits her at a rehabilitation clinic recovering from alcoholism. She tells Daniel her drinking was a result of the affair her husband had with Fey Sommers. She also tells him she and Fey went to confront Bradford and force him to choose. Soon after, Fey died, and Claire was admitted into rehab. Although she knew of the affair, she was generally unaware of what Bradford was doing behind her back.

After completing rehab, Claire and Bradford finally reconnected as a couple. Bradford planned to do his best to keep his marriage afloat while Claire tries to stay sober for Daniel's sake.

Claire, however, is showing signs she might be leaning back towards the bottle as evidenced in "Sofia's Choice". Moreover, there are hints in the wake of the arrest of her husband that Claire knows he was not the murderer, a fact which draws Betty into the mystery in later episodes; Claire reveals to Betty in the episode "Brothers" she was the actual murderer of Fey Sommers. When Claire visits Bradford with plans to confess, he is not happy about it and warns her not to go through with it. She insists she will, however. After both Betty and lawyer Grace Chin both mention to Daniel that Claire's Aston Martin was at the scene of Fey's murder, Daniel confronts his mother and learns she tampered with Fey's brake lines and followed her for 18 miles prior to the former editrix's demise. Claire also admits to being sober at the time of the murder, saying she wanted to see her "Burn, and burn, and burn", because Fey took away the only man (Bradford) Claire ever loved in her life.