Claire Meade

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Claire Meade

First appearance	The Lyin', the Watch and the Wardrobe
Information
Gender	Female
Age	Mid 50s (est.)
Occupation	None
Title	Original founder of MODE Magazine
Relationships	Bradford Meade (Husband)
Children	Daniel Meade (Son) Alexis Meade (daughter)
Portrayed by	Judith Light
Created by	Silvio Horta

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

[edit] Background

Claire is Bradford Meade's wife and the mother of both Daniel and Alex/Alexis. In Sofia's Choice, Claire mentioned that 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 that her drinking was a result of the affair her husband had with Fey Sommers. She also tells him that she and Fey went to confront Bradford and force him to choose. Soon after, Fey died and Claire was admitted into rehab. Although she knows of the affair, she is generally unaware of what Bradford is doing behind her back.

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

However, Claire is showing signs that she might be leaning back towards the bottle as evidenced in "Sofia's Choice" and there are hints that in the wake of the arrest of her husband that she also knows that he wasn't the murderer after all, a move that drew Betty into the mystery in later episodes, after Claire revealed to Betty in the episode "Brothers", that she was the actual murderer of Fey Sommers. When she visits Bradford with plans to confess, he is not happy about it and warns her not to got through with it, but insists she will, and already her confession has Daniel confronting her as she arrived home after Betty and lawyer Grace Chin both mentioned to Daniel that her Aston Martin was at the scene of the murder, in which she tampered with the brake lines and followed her for 18 miles prior to Fey's demise. Claire also admits to being sober at the time of the murder, saying that she wanted to see her "...Burn, burn, burn" because Fey took away the only man (Bradford) that she ever loved in her life.

As Daniel tried to keep Claire from going to the police until he can find a way to get her out of the situation, Claire maintained her admission and wanted to tell Grace about how it happened (over Daniel's objections), as Grace and Daniel agreed that she could get medical help and receive a lighter sentence, until Daniel's sister, Alexis made it worse when she accused Daniel of hiring and sleeping with Grace (who would excuse herself from the case afterwards), making it harder for Claire to get a reasonable conviction.

When Claire feared that her own words would turn on her in court, she was ready to leave the country, only to have Betty intervene after she called her to bring a credit card to her hotel. Betty later brought Claire to her home so she could buy time, hopefully to convince her not to leave the country, and in the end Betty's words convinces her to do the right thing as she calls the police and turns herself in to authorites.

While being kept in a hospital while being handcuffed to the bed, she told Bradford that although Meade Publications is the publisher of MODE, Claire is the actual owner of the magazine and revealed that she has the right to keep Daniel and Alexis onboard. This revalation prompted Wilhelmina Slater to manipulate her into signing a power of attorney, but Claire tells her that it will never happen and that MODE will remain in Meade hands.