Tom Hardy Met His Wife Charlotte Riley While He Was Expecting a Child With Another Woman
Tom Hardy secretly married his wife, Charlotte Riley, back in 2014 in a low-key Château de Roussan wedding in France. The couple kept their relationship extremely private before they tied the knot, and they’ve continued to do so since they’ve become husband and wife.
Occasionally, they will walk the red carpet together or briefly mention each other in interviews. But overall, very little is known about Hardy and Riley’s relationship. We do know, however, that there are some scandalous details surrounding how they met.
Tom Hardy split from his first wife in 2004
Hardy had a whirlwind romance with his first wife, Sarah Adams. They married in 1999 just three weeks after they met. But at the time, the Venom star was struggling with addiction, and that quickly took a toll on their marriage.
The couple divorced in 2004, and then Hardy moved on to a relationship with director Rachael Speed when they met on the set of The Virgin Queen. They were still together in 2008 when Hardy landed the lead role of Heathcliff in the British TV adaptation of Wuthering Heights, and he and Speed were expecting their first child.
Tom Hardy met his wife Charlotte Riley while he was expecting a child with Rachael Speed
The woman playing Catherine — Hardy’s on-screen love interest — was Charlotte Riley. And as they worked together, Hardy started to develop feelings. According to The Things, while Hardy and Riley worked together on Wuthering Heights, they started going on coffee dates.
The speculation is that Hardy cheated on the pregnant Speed with Riley before breaking things off for good. However, Riley says they took things slowly because she had her doubts about him.
“It wasn’t love at first cup. In fact, I was a bit unnerved when he switched into Charles Bronson [Britain’s most dangerous criminal whom Hardy portrayed in the biopic Bronson],” Riley said, per The Daily Mail. “After a few cups of tea I realized it was something he did mainly to make people laugh.”
Even if the origins of Hardy and Riley’s relationship were a bit scandalous, it appears that Speed is okay with how everything turned out. She gave birth to her and Hardy’s son Louis before they split in 2009, and she was one of the few guests at Hardy and Riley’s wedding five years later. Hardy and Riley now have two children of their own — a son and a daughter.
Charlotte Riley’s career has included playwriting, clowns, and a doo-wop group
While American fans are quite familiar with Hardy’s acting resume and A-list status, many aren’t aware that Riley is a British actress who studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).
She also went to clown school at the prestigious Ecole Philippe Gaulier, where she described one of her clowns as “quite possibly the most angry Minnie Mouse of all time.”
Before starring alongside Hardy in Wuthering Heights, Riley won a playwriting award from The Sunday Times for the comedy she co-wrote titled Shaking Cecilia. And, she sang in a 1940s doo-wop group called The Flirtinis.
In 2017, Rile played the role of Kate Middleton in the controversial film King Charles III — an adaptation of a play of the same name that told a “future history” story of what Charles’ reign could possibly look like after the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
Riley also starred alongside her husband in the British crime drama The Take and the period piece Peaky Blinders.
