Now Edward Fox attacks broken marriages
But does he mean nephew Laurence’s split from Billie Piper?
When he revealed last week that his eight-year marriage to actress Billie Piper had come to an end, he insisted there were ‘no third parties involved’.
Alas, Laurence Fox, star of TV series Lewis, is now facing the disapproval of his nearest and dearest.
For just days before the 37-year-old publicised his split from Swindon-born Billie via social media, his uncle, fellow actor edward Fox, launched a heartfelt attack on the breakdown of marriage in Britain.
‘We are living in a broken society in england because people are having children outside of marriage or their marriages are breaking up after having children,’ edward tells me. ‘Marriage is about one flesh and being inseparable. That has been lost today and we are reaping the horrors.’
Old harrovian Laurence married Billie, 33, before their first child was born and they went on to have two sons, Winston, seven,
and Eugene, three. ‘I think marriage is very much needed in this day and age,’ says Edward, who wed Downton Abbey actress Joanna David in 2004 after 33 years of living together.
‘ If two people want to have children, at that moment you’re conjoined in a way that you have not been before and that is inseparable.
‘This is the discipline of life. You cannot defy the laws of nature.’
Edward, who recently claimed that men are naturall y prone to cheating — just days before Laurence and Billie’s split was made public — has been married twice.
Before Joanna, with whom he had t wo children out of wedlock — actors Emilia Fox, 41, and Freddie, 26 — he was married for three years to the late actress Tracy Reed, by whom he has a daughter, Lucy.
‘It wasn’t that she was unfaithful, but she was so beautiful that she was sought after and lived a sl i ghtly hei ghtened life, being so admired,’ adds Edward. ‘I wasn’t comfortable with that.’