Hugh Laurie is most well known for his role as the eccentric Dr. Gregory House.
While the series skyrocketed his career, his busy schedule took a toll on his relationship with his
wife of over 30 years. His marriage was put to the test after a scandalous affair was made public,
and Hugh’s work forced the couple to spend years apart on opposite sides of the world.
For a moment, Hugh thought that he'd lose everything he held dear to his heart.
Stay tuned, Juicers; today, we're going to take a deep dive into the
struggle of Hugh Laurie's marriage and how they fought to save it.
Before Hugh had even thought about becoming an actor, he was training
to be an Olympic standard rower while he studied archeology and anthropology at the
prestigious Cambridge University. Sadly, after becoming incredibly ill with glandular fever,
Laurie had to put his Olympic ambitions to an end.
So, with the days of being a sportsman behind him,
Hugh decided that he would join an acting club instead. It was there that he met Emma Thompson.
If you love a good throwback romance, then you have come to the right place.
Before the days of Dr. House and Nanny McPhee, Emma Thompson) and Hugh Laurie were once a couple.
They fell in love while they were both undergraduates at the university during the 1970s.
Speaking fondly of her young love, Emma gushed,
"He was rowing in the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. He was enormous and eating steak
all the time. And asleep for the rest of the time. He was also very funny."
They haven't dished out too many details about their romance, but Emma has shared that they
used to spend a lot of time driving around in Hugh's convertible. Which,
let's face it, is an image that will live in our heads rent-free forever.
Emma also went on to describe Hugh in the most generous way,
if you know what we mean … She said that he "is very loveable," adding,
"He is one of those rare people who manages to be lugubriously sexy, like a well-hung eel."
Sadly, their love wasn't meant to be, and during Laurie's speech at Thompson's Hollywood Walk of
Fame ceremony, he revealed that she, quote, "dumped me for a mime artist."
Even though their romance didn't last, decades after their split,
the pair are still very good friends.
"She said talented things, she wore talented clothes, she rode a talented bicycle,
she made talented spaghetti. She is a truly remarkable person, a very good friend,
and I could not be prouder," Hugh shared about Emma during a speech.
But the breakup with Emma wasn't the end of finding love for Hugh. The actor met Jo Green,
a theater administrator, through a mutual friend during the 1980s, and he was quickly smitten
by her. The couple soon started dating, and in 1988, Jo fell pregnant with their first child.
At the end of the year, the couple welcomed a son, Charles.
After the birth of their son, Hugh decided it was time to make things really official.
He proposed to Jo, and she instantly said yes. They married in June 1989,
and Hugh's best man at the wedding was none other than his close friend and comedy partner
Stephen Fry. - In fact, it was Emma Thompson that first introduced Laurie to Fry. So without Emma,
we would have never gotten the famous comedy duo that we all came to know and love.
Over the next few years, things were peaceful for Hugh and Jo. He was focused on building
his acting career, taking on more serious roles, appearing in Sense & Sensibility, 101 Dalmatians,
Stuart Little, and the show Fortysomething. In the meantime, their family was also growing,
and the couple welcomed another son in 1991 and a daughter the following year.
Sadly, just a few years after their daughter was born, Hugh admitted to having an affair.
While he was filming The Place of Lions in Australia, he and the director Audrey Cooke
got a little too close for comfort behind the scenes. Not much is known about the affair,
but they were caught out by the tabloids, and the scandal spread like wildfire.
Laurie admitted that the affair was more than just a short fling, and naturally,
he felt incredibly guilty about the way that his wife had to find out about it. He said,
"there is nothing to say that will make it better for anyone, so it is better not to say anything."
He also added that because the affair had become public knowledge,
it made everything worse. Instead of being able to work things out with his wife in private,
the whole world knew about it. "It was all my fault. And I was shocked by what happened.
The pain. Everyone's pain. I'm nervous of saying, in a facile way, that it has changed me."
The actor later went for therapy to help him process everything that had happened. Thankfully,
he and Jo were able to reestablish the broken trust in their marriage and stayed together.
He and his family lived together in North London and were used to spending a lot of time with
each other. However, when the role of Dr. House came along, everything for the couple changed.
The show was being filmed in Los Angeles, and the actor decided to move there while
they were shooting, and Jo stayed in London with their three kids.
While the couple knew that being split by the long-distance wasn't going to be easy,
they had no idea how much of a toll it would take on their family and their marriage. The
show was a huge success. After the end of every season, another one was promised,
which only meant that Hugh would have to spend more time away from Jo and his kids. For about
9 months of the year, Hugh was working in LA while his family was on the opposite side of the world.
When asked what it was like to spend more time on set and away from his family,
Hugh confessed, "I wouldn't say that doing the series has made my marriage easier.
Better? I don't know about that, either. Doing weekly TV is like joining the Navy
and going to the other side of the world for ten months of the year."
Hugh's absence soon started to put a strain on their marriage. Considering his past affair,
it's understandable that Jo also worried if her husband would stray again because
they were apart for so long. The actor attempted to move Jo and his kids to LA,
but for some reason, the plans fell through. Naturally, the rumor mill began to churn,
and whispers of an inevitable divorce were starting to spread.
Hugh tried to keep as much of his life out of the spotlight as possible, but with the huge success
of House MD, it seemed virtually impossible. The actor opened up about his struggle with depression
while filming the show after images of him looking rundown were published in the tabloids.
"I wasn't prepared for this at all.
But I don't really have a life outside of this bubble. We can finish filming between
midnight and 4 am. Then I'm straight back to bed. It's not really a life, actually."
It was later reported that the producers of House M.D. even warned new actors that started on the
series about Laurie's mood, which could be very low and sullen. But Laurie had a breakthrough
moment when he realized what he was going through was depression, and he decided to get help.
"It affected everything—my family and friends. I was a pain in the arse to
have around. I was miserable and self-absorbed."
Hugh explained that his goal was to one day see the world in a better way
and treat his loved ones with more kindness, and have more to give.
Laurie was soon a changed man and credited therapy to rescuing his life. He understood the changes
that he needed to make to take better care of himself and be more present for his family.
Hugh and Jo put in all the hard work to ensure they stayed happy and together as a family,
and it was all worth it in the end. We're so happy that they were able to stay together,
and after over 30 years together, they're still going strong.