Emma Thompson Felt ‘Half Alive’ After Finding Out About Ex-Husband Kenneth Branagh’s Affair With Helena Bonham Carter: ‘I Was Utterly Blind’

Emma Thompson felt “half alive” after she found out her ex-husband Kenneth Branagh was having an affair with Helena Bonham Carter.

The actress spoke to The New Yorker, sharing how she felt when she found out Branagh had been seeing Carter, who worked on his film “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”.

Thompson and Branagh were married from 1989-1995, while it’s thought Carter dated him from 1994-1999.

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Thompson recalled, “I was utterly, utterly blind to the fact that he had relationships with other women on set.

“What I learned was how easy it is to be blinded by your own desire to deceive yourself.”

She admitted, “I was half alive. Any sense of being a lovable or worthy person had gone completely.”

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Thompson said the person “who picked up the pieces and put them back together” was the actor Greg Wise, who played John Willoughby in “Sense and Sensibility”. Thompson starred in the 1995 flick as Elinor Dashwood.

Thompson and Wise ended up tying the knot in 2003 and have been together for 27 years.

“I’ve learned more from my second marriage just by being married,” the “Cruella” actress said. “As my mother says, ‘the first twenty years are the hardest.’”