Lily James is a star in her own right, having appeared in beloved films like Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and The Iron Claw. But for some reason, every time the actress's name hits headlines, people feel the need to bring up the photos of her and actor Dominic West embracing.
For him too, a four-year-old scandal continues to follow Dominic West with search for 'Dominic West and Lily James photos' popping up every time he's in the news.
What happened between Dominic West and Lily James?
In October 2020, Lily James was linked with The Wire actor Dominic West, after photos were published which showed the pair sharing a scooter and enjoying an al fresco lunch in Rome, Italy. Weeks later, reports emerged claiming that Dominic was being considered for the role of King Charles in Netflix's The Crown, a part he would go on to earn a BAFTA nomination for in March 2024.
When the pictures of Lily, 35, and Dominic, 55, together first appeared, the gossip mill immediately started whirring. But why? Two celebs being spotted larking about doesn't seem like a big deal, right? Except for the fact that Dominic is a married man - having married wife Catherine FitzGerald in 2010. The pair have four children together, while Dominic also has a daughter with ex-girlfriend Polly Astor.
The story soon got wilder: the day after the pictures were published, Dominic and Catherine put on a united front. With press camped outside their Wiltshire home, Dominic and Catherine came out the front of their house and posed for a couple's photoshoot. Dominic told reporters, 'I just want to say our marriage is strong and we are still very much still together,' and handed the media a note with the same bizarre message. It's worth noting that despite this, Dominic was still not wearing his wedding ring.
A month later, reports claimed that Catherine and Dominic's marriage was pretty much over, with friends telling The Sun at the time that she was 'ready to pull the plug'. A source told the paper. 'She has since told the people closest to her their marriage is as good as over now and she doesn’t think there is a way past this.'
In public however, the opposite seemed true and the couple appeared to show that they were actually very much a united pair. When they were photographed on an afternoon jog around the same time, Catherine told the media, 'We’re fine, thank you very much, yes we are. Things are OK between us. We don’t need any advice from anyone, thank you.'
As of January 2024, Dominic West and his wife Catherine FitzGerald are still very much together and have put the whole thing behind them. Lily James, meanwhile, is dating Queens of the Stone Age bassist Michael Shuman, having been first linked to the rocker in 2021.
The photos of Lily, then 32, and Dominic, then 50, were taken during a break from their busy filming schedule as they starred in The Pursuit of Love together. And if the photos hadn't raised enough eyebrows, the fact that Dominic played Lily's father in the BBC adaptation definitely did.
They had also worked together previously: Lily played Desdemona, and Dominic starred as Iago, in a 2011 stage production of Othello.
In 2016, Dominic stated that he had been prone to womanising throughout his career. After all, his most successful on-screen credit (prior to his appearance as Prince Charles in The Crown) is probably his role in The Affair, in which he and Ruth Wilson trace the dramatic journey of an infidelity. Oh, the irony!
'That got a lot of things out of my system — hopefully,' he told The Evening Standard. 'And now I just act it. There are a lot of sex scenes in The Affair. If Catherine was in something like that I would not be happy. But she’s OK with it. She’s cool.'
He continued, 'I think women should be more indulgent of affairs. I really do. It’s daft to kick someone out over a fling. Isn’t it? Everyone should turn a blind eye to men’s behaviour between the ages of 40 and 50. Let it all blow over.'
But it wasn’t until April 2024, and a new profile in The Sunday Times that Dominic touched on the photos with Lily for the first time. While he refused to comment directly on the 2020 scandal, the actor said that the scrutiny had fed into his portrayal of Charles on The Crown. 'I’d had a very acute understanding of what it’s like to feel the horror of your name or your photograph coming up in the newspapers,' he told the publication.
Dominic admitted that while the experience had been ‘deeply stressful for my wife and my kids’, there were ‘lighter moments’ too.
‘I hesitate to speak on my wife’s behalf because it was obviously horrible, particularly for her,’ he said. ‘But we do joke about it sometimes. Because whenever we went out together, the papers would always say we were "putting on a show of unity".
He continued, 'Even if we’d just been rowing about parking the car or whatever, even if that couldn’t be further from the truth. And so when we go out we do sort of say, "Shall we go and have a show of unity up in London?" It was an absurd situation… That was the best that came out of it, really.’
Lily, meanwhile, alluded to the scandal in a 2022 interview with Rolling Stone. Discussing the shared experiences between her and Pamela Anderson, who she played in Disney+ series Pam & Tommy, she said, 'Women in the public eye at some point experience some sort of difficult situation in their relationship between privacy and your life being in the tabloids. It was a lot. It’s a story as old as time.'
Daisy Hall is a News and Entertainment writer on Grazia, specialising in TV and film.