Martin Freeman has secretly tied the knot with his girlfriend of six years, actress Rachel Benaissa. The Sherlock star, 55, and his French partner, 32, managed to keep their wedding under wraps for months before stepping out together on Wednesday wearing some rather telling new jewellery.
Attending the premiere of Freeman’s latest film, The Long Winter, the actor was spotted sporting a gold wedding band, while Benaissa showed off a sparkling diamond ring. A representative for Freeman has since confirmed to The Sun that the couple married earlier this year, although further details of their big day remain a mystery.
Relationship timeline
The pair began dating in 2020, four years after Freeman separated from his longtime partner and Sherlock co-star Amanda Abbington. While they’ve largely kept their relationship out of the spotlight, Freeman has occasionally offered glimpses into their life together, including their shared love of food.
Appearing on Jessie and Lennie Ware’s Table Manners podcast, the Hobbit actor revealed that Benaissa is particularly enthusiastic about two of her home country’s most famous exports. When Lennie asked whether his French girlfriend was a trained chef, Freeman joked: ‘She’s not a Cordon Bleu… she’s a massive cheese and wine w****. That’s what she would say about herself. She says that about herself, “I’m a cheese and wine w****”. It’s not all she is, but no, she loves all that stuff. We like cooking.’
Who is Rachel Benaissa?
Benaissa is also an actress, having appeared in the BBC adaptation of Normal People, starring Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones. Her other credits include Aisling Bea’s comedy This Way Up and the Netflix romantic comedy Irish Wish, starring Lindsay Lohan. She trained at Dublin’s Gaiety School of Acting, whose former students include Colin Farrell and Aidan Turner, and has also pursued screenwriting. Among her writing projects is a dark comedy-horror series titled SELF CARE GIRLIE.
The couple first publicly stepped out together at the Raindance Film Festival’s opening night screening of Best Sellers, held at London’s Dorchester hotel. And while Freeman and Benaissa have preferred to keep their romance relatively private, it appears she has become a fixture in his family life.
Family life and past relationship
The actor shares two children, Grace, 21, and Joe, 18, with his former partner Abbington, and has previously spoken about spending time with them and Benaissa. During an appearance on The Jonathan Ross Show, Freeman recalled taking his family to a Sherlock-themed escape room, despite having played John Watson in the hit BBC series. ‘I went with my other half and my two kids… it wasn’t even a Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes, it was [the BBC one],’ he explained. ‘I’m aware it did feel a little bit maybe t***ish to go to my own thing… but my kids said it was going to be fun.’
Unfortunately, playing Sherlock Holmes’ right-hand man for years apparently doesn’t guarantee much success when it comes to solving puzzles. ‘It did take us a while,’ he admitted. When fellow guest Romesh Ranganathan questioned his decision to visit an attraction based on his own television show, Freeman joked: ‘My voice is in it… I hadn’t seen or heard myself enough in that week, so I thought… and I wasn’t stuck, I just wanted to stay in there longer.’
Benaissa has also appeared in a family TikTok video shared by Freeman’s daughter Grace, dancing alongside Joe and the family’s dachshunds to She’s The Brightest Star from the actor’s 2009 Christmas film Nativity! ‘Merry Christmas from Mr Maddens,’ Grace captioned the clip, referencing her father’s character in the festive favourite.
Before finding love with Benaissa, Freeman spent 16 years with Abbington, whom he met while filming Men Only in 2000. The former couple went on to work together on Sherlock, portraying husband and wife John and Mary Watson, before separating in 2016. Their split initially remained private, with Abbington later revealing they had continued working together without publicly acknowledging the end of their relationship. ‘When we broke up nobody knew, we didn’t tell anybody except for a few key people because they had to know, because of the logistics of hotels and stuff,’ she told The Sunday Times magazine. ‘It took six months for it to get out and a lot of that was while we were working on Sherlock.’
Despite the difficulties of their separation, Abbington has maintained that the two remain on good terms. ‘We were professional and we were going to get on and make a show and be civil to each other,’ she explained. ‘We still get on really well, we still really both admire each other as actors… he’s a great guy, but we just couldn’t live with each other any more.’
Abbington has since found love with former escapologist Jonathan Goodwin, who suffered life-changing injuries during a stunt rehearsal for America’s Got Talent: Extreme in 2021. Freeman, meanwhile, has now made his relationship with Benaissa official after six years together. And, judging by their decision to keep the wedding secret until their rings gave the game away, the newlyweds seem perfectly happy enjoying married life away from the headlines.
