Owen Thiele’s birth mother had already made her decision. She was in Texas, and she wanted her son placed with a family nearby, people she might be able to stay in touch with. A couple in Los Angeles didn’t fit.
“My birth mom really wanted someone local, someone in Texas, someone who she could maybe have a relationship with,” Thiele, the “Adults” actor, said in September on Tish Cyrus’s podcast, “Sorry We’re Cyrus.”
Rather than leave it to the agency, she called the couple herself. “Eventually my birth mom called my mom, I think, as a courtesy to be like, ‘I’m kind of going in a different direction here,’” Thiele said.
Nobody picked up so it went to the answering machine. The greeting was Thiele’s dad tickling his mom while she tried, and failed, to get through it without laughing. That’s all it took change everything.
“My birth mom was like, ‘I need my son to be filled with laughter and joy, and I want him to be around… support and love,’” Thiele said. Her message to the couple was simple: “Come pick up your kid.”
Thiele, now 30, also stars in Prime Video’s “Overcompensating.” He and Cyrus had met at Raven-Symoné’s birthday party, where they figured out within minutes that they’d both been adopted at birth.
He was born in Houston in 1996 and raised in Beverly Hills by music producer Bob Thiele Jr. and Amy Kanter. Growing up as a Black kid in a white Jewish family is now the basis of his upcoming comedy series, “Off Color,” which he’ll star in, write and co-executive produce.
