Dominic West has made a number of off-the-cuff comments about marriage and infidelity over the years, but few people batted an eye — that is, until he was spotted kissing his Pursuit of Love costar Lily James.
The Affair alum made headlines in October 2020 when the Daily Mail published photos of him cozying up to the Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again star during a trip to Rome. After going for an electric scooter ride around the Spanish Steps and Piazza di Pietra, the pair were seen snogging over lunch at a local restaurant. The newspaper reported that they spent two nights at the five-star Hotel de la Ville.
Two days after his flirty outing with James, West returned home to England and reunited with his wife, Catherine FitzGerald. The couple — who married in County Limerick, Ireland, in June 2010 and share four children, Dora, Senan, Francis and Christabel — staged a photo op outside their Chippenham, Wiltshire, house, putting on a united front and kissing for photographers. They also gave reporters a handwritten note that read, “Our marriage is strong and we’re very much still together. Thank you.”
The actor, who also has a daughter named Martha with ex-girlfriend Polly Astor, was not wearing his wedding ring in Italy or upon his return to the U.K. James, for her part, has not publicly commented on the scandal. She was previously linked to Chris Evans and dated Matt Smith from 2014 to 2019.
West is best known for his leading role as Noah Solloway in The Affair, which aired on Showtime from 2014 to 2019. The drama explored his character’s extramarital relationship with Alison Bailey (Ruth Wilson) and earned West a Golden Globe Award nomination in 2015.
“[The Affair is] deliberately provocative. It’s deliberately melodramatic,” the English star, who previously played Jimmy McNulty in HBO’s The Wire, told The New York Times in 2016. “There’s never a moment where there aren’t six things going on in the protagonist’s mind that aren’t highly traumatized and mentally extreme. And a lot of the characters don’t behave in a way that is necessarily sympathetic, and that is entirely deliberate on [cocreator Sarah Treem’s] part, because she’s interested in taking them on a journey where they have redemption, and they overcome their shortcomings. And I couldn’t really argue with that, even if I didn’t really like the behavior myself.”
Scroll down to read West’s most peculiar quotes about marriage, affairs and more.
