I’m so excited to be having a new baby in these unusual times
Lord Of The Rings star on his rollercoaster of love with Katy, their Covid fears for their daughter and how ‘nothing is off the table’ for the birth
ORLANDO Bloom is looking forward to the joy of becoming a father again, after weeks of heartache. Last month it was revealed the star’s adored dog Mighty had gone missing, and Orlando had his pet’s name tattooed on his chest.
Then came an emotional social media post about his death: “Mighty’s on the other side. After 7 days of searching from sunrise to sunset and into the wee hours, today, we found his collar... I have wept more this week than I thought possible.”
Now the actor has told the Express that, in a strange way, his desperate search for the lost labradoodle may have proved to his pregnant girlfriend, pop star Katy Perry, how much love he has in his heart.
“It was probably good for Katy to see me go to the lengths that I went to, to try and find him,” he said. “Mighty was the physical, outward representation of my heart.
“He was a small boy with a very big heart and he really thought he was a big dog in a small body. He was a gift to me from Katy and he travelled everywhere with me and it’s going to make me cry, so I don’t want to talk about it too much because I miss him very, very much,” says the Canterbury-born star.
“He went missing one evening a couple of weeks ago. He’s never out of my sight, but he just wandered off because he is a bit of an adventurer and I honestly thought he was just going to go on a path of adventure.
“I spent seven days looking and searching because I couldn’t believe it until we found his collar. It was very painful, but he will always be with me. And funnily enough, he’s probably made way for this little girl who is coming into my life soon.”
HE’S already a father to Flynn, aged nine, with his supermodel ex-wife Miranda Kerr, and he is overjoyed that Katy is due to give birth to their daughter this month.
“I’m super excited,” he says. “I love being a father to Flynn and I’m excited to be bringing another little baby into the world in these really unusual times.
“It’s going to be new in so many ways, but I think there’s an instinctive aspect to being a father that I felt very aligned with the first time around so I’m actually very excited about this next chapter – as is Katy.
“And Flynn couldn’t be more excited to be getting a little sister. He’s got two other brothers from Miranda so it’s a wonderful time.”
Orlando, talking via video from the home he shares with Katy, 35, in her native Santa Barbara, California, adds: “Of course, we’re living in really unusual circumstances but in a way I feel very blessed to just have a close and more intimate situation in which to be bringing in a baby and raising it.”
The couple are acutely aware of the dangers of the Covid-19 pandemic, he says, and have discussed how that relates to pregnancy. “Obviously there’s a lot of protocols in place and we’re following them all.
“We’ve shrunk the circle of immediate people in our lives whom we are around, so it’s just a close group of family and friends who are trusted and for the meantime it seems like the smartest thing to do to take care of us, our family and our friends and society at large.
“Because I think that’s the key, right? While it’s summer and people want to be out living their lives as normally and safely as possible, you social distance and wear masks when you are in very congested areas.
“Katy is not somebody who is afraid of anything really and I wouldn’t say I am either, so it’s not something we’re afraid of, we’re just being sensible.”
They have considered the possibility of a home birth but have yet to make a decision.
“Everything is on the table, because it needs to be,” he says. “And Katy’s sister had both of her children that way. It’s not something that she is afraid to do but we just have to see how things pan out. For the moment, we’re taking it day-by
day.” Orlando recalls how they first met, when he was a presenter at the Golden Globe awards in January 2016.
“For the first time I was standing out on a stage to present an award, without really having anything to do except say, ‘And the award goes to…’ so I wasn’t uncomfortable about it.
“So I stood on the stage, gazing out at the audience and there she was, just sitting amongst the crowd. And I remember she was wearing this beautiful pink dress and I was just like, ‘Wow; I think that’s Katy Perry.’
“She was sitting at a table with Denzel Washington, who had just been sent over a box of hamburgers.
“You are given a lot to drink but not a huge amount to eat at the Golden Globes so everyone is a little loose and a little hungry,” he says.
“When I saw that box of burgers arrive,
I wandered over and said to Denzel, ‘Hey man, can I have one of those?’ “Denzel said, ‘Sure,’ so I took one and winked at Katy. And that was it,” he says.
They linked up later that evening at a party given by now disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein.
“We had a fun evening chatting and dancing and different things,” he says. “And then we embarked on this rather remarkable journey that got us to where we are today, which has not by any means been a Hollywood love story that you might want to hear about.
“It’s taken its own course and gone on its own roller-coaster of ups and downs.” They broke up in February 2017 and reconciled in April the following year and became engaged in February last year.
Then they revealed through the music video for Katy’s song Never Worn White that they were expecting their first child together.
During his marriage to Miranda, who is Australian, Orlando spent a lot of time in Australia and both he and Katy, he says, would consider moving there.
“I love it there and I’d move there in a heartbeat,” he says now.
“We’re about to bring a baby into a really unique and unusual world, so who knows?
“I think everybody’s exploring ideas and options so I wouldn’t rule Australia out. It’s right up there on my list of favourites, for sure.
“I’ve always had an affinity for Australia and Australians, having been married to one.
“I spent a lot of time there and it was a pretty big part of my life over the years.”
Orlando is still best known for his swashbuckling roles as Legolas in the Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit film series and as Will Turner in the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies.
He became interested in acting as a child when a dyslexia diagnosis led his mother to suggest drama classes. Early TV roles included Casualty and Midsommer Murders.
Then he won the part of Legolas just two days after graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Now 43, he’s promoting his just-released movie, the revenge thriller Retaliation, in which he plays an angry demolition worker who, when he was 12 years old, was sexually abused by a country priest.
“I hope it will highlight compassion and empathy for people with mental illness because often we don’t understand why somebody is behaving in a certain way and we write them off as mentally unsound and therefore dangerous,” he says.