Young love for Helena...just like her royal role
HELENA Bonham Carter is said to be “inseparable” from a man 20 years her junior, mirroring her TV role as Princess Margaret, who scandalised society by taking a toyboy lover in the 1970s.
The actress, 52, met 32-year-old Rye Dag Holmboe at a wedding in the summer and they “hit it off immediately” friends claim.
Mr Holmboe, an academic and writer, has been seen on the set of The Crown, in which Bonham Carter plays the Princess. And this week he was spotted leaving her north London home.
A source said: “Everyone thought it was a fling but it now seems to be hotting up as they are joined at the hip.
“Some people are surprised that Helena has found someone who is younger and from a different walk of life, but others are less surprised as it is very like her to do the unexpected.”
The actress had an unconventional 13-year relationship with film director Tim Burton. The couple had two children but lived in next-door cottages. They split in 2014.
In a recent interview she was asked if there was a new man in her life. “I’ve got two bunnies and a tortoise. I’m not prepared to talk about my friends,” she smiled.
When asked if that meant “yes”, she replied: “Maybe.”
Mr Holmboe is a fellow at University College London.
He lectures on modern art, writes for art magazines and journals and is believed to have lived on a narrowboat. Earlier this month he joined Bonham Carter on location in Andalusia, which is standing in for the island of Mustique where Margaret had a villa.
It was in 1976 that she was photographed relaxing on the beach with Roddy Llewellyn, a minor British aristocrat 17 years her junior.
The actress was filming a scene in which she was being caressed by Harry Treadway, 34, who plays Llewellyn.
The third season of the hit Netflix show airs next year.