The Crown star Erin Doherty has found a new leading lady – and, just like King Charles‘s nephew Peter Phillips, she’s fallen for an NHS worker.
I can reveal the 33-year-old actress, who shot to fame playing Peter’s mother Princess Anne in the Netflix royal drama, has struck up a romance with radiographer Sinead Donnelly, 35.
Phillips, meanwhile, has announced his engagement to NHS nurse Harriet Sperling.
Over the weekend, Erin gave a glimpse into their blossoming relationship by posting a sweet photograph of them on holiday.
In the picture, the pair stroll hand in hand through an archway, dressed for an evening occasion and each holding a glass of wine. ‘Take us back to Italy please…’ Sinead commented on the snap.
Erin, who recently starred in Adolescence – another hugely successful Netflix series – was previously in a long-term relationship with fellow actress Sophie Melville.
Doherty posted a photo with her girlfriend Sinead Donnelly on Instagram
Doherty is best known for her role as Princess Anne in series three of The Crown
They met in 2017 while starring in Alan Ayckbourn’s play The Divide, with Erin later describing their relationship as her ‘greatest accomplishment’. While she and Sinead are enjoying the honeymoon phase, Erin has admitted that her dedication to her craft can affect her personal life.
‘I fall in love with my characters – my girlfriend will attest to this,’ she said recently. ‘The minute anything comes into my sphere, the blinkers go on.’
A self-confessed ‘hopeless romantic’ who ‘loves love’, Erin has also said of her sexuality: ‘It took me a really long time to get to the point where I was, like, ‘Oh, I’m gay’. I was never ready to carve out that path for myself, even though my relationships with men weren’t satisfying.’
Helen’s novel way to thrive
Despite having written the bestselling Bridget Jones series, Helen Fielding struggles with imposter syndrome.
The author, 67, is quietly working on a new book – unrelated to the hapless anti-hero played by Renee Zellweger on screen – but she admits: ‘I think everything in my novel is rubbish and makes no sense. I’m out of my depth.
‘I try to boost my confidence by saying I’ve had six novels published. Last week, I thought my new novel was great – I was imagining the reviews, ‘Fielding’s a master novelist at the top of her game’. Maybe it’s just part of the process.
‘In the end, you just have to knuckle down and, like Winston Churchill said, keep buggering on and get on with it.’
Emily Maitlis admits that since her Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew in 2019 ended his career as a working royal, she’s developed a technique to avoid his daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. ‘Occasionally, I find myself in the same room as them and I feel terrible,’ she says. ‘There’s normally a very quiet, elegant dance where I try to get to the other end and leave them in peace.’
Elevated to the peerage by Boris Johnson, journalist Claire Fox was taken aback by a plea from her father, John. ‘On his deathbed he said he had lung cancer because he smoked,’ reveals Baroness Fox of Buckley, 65. ‘He said: ‘Claire, I want you to promise me… That you’ll go down to Silk Cut Ultra [low-tar cigarettes]’.’
Harry Potter star Miriam Margolyes once gave a theatregoer a dramatic surprise. ‘I would come on, acting drunk, and sit on a chair,’ she recalls. ‘Between the rehearsal and the first night, carpenters had put castors on the chair. At first I thought it was testament to the power of my performance. Then I fell on a punter in the front row.’
Here comes the cavalry, with ‘hottest royal’ Alex
Alexander Ogilvy and sister Flora Vesterberg
When the Royal Family gathers for Trooping the Colour next year, one member may not be a spectator but riding in the King’s Birthday Parade.
Alexander Ogilvy, 28, grandson of Queen Elizabeth’s cousin Princess Alexandra, has graduated from Sandhurst and signed up to the Household Cavalry.
‘Very proud of our British Army officer,’ says his sister, Flora Vesterberg, 30. She joined Alex, pictured right – described as ‘the hottest royal you never heard of’ – with their grandmother, pictured above, for his passing-out parade at the military academy in Berkshire.
Divorcing Lily says life’s a drag
Lily Allen is puffing her way through a painful time – and not just on stage.
The pop singer and actress, 40, who is divorcing her actor husband David Harbour, is currently playing the beleaguered Hedda Gabler at the Theatre Royal Bath. And she’s convinced the play’s director, Matthew Dunster, to let her vape on stage because she’s ‘going through some stuff’ in her own life, too.
‘When we were in rehearsals, I just said to Matthew, ‘What about her vaping?’ And he was, like, ‘Yeah.’ I think Matthew is just being generous to the fact that I might be going through some stuff: give her a little vape, give her a little time just to make her life a little bit easier.’
