The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Piper says co-parenting with Fox is ‘difficult’
Actress provides a detailed account of her current relationship with her controversial ex-husband
BILLIE PIPER has said that co-parenting with Laurence Fox is “enormously difficult” in an interview providing the most detailed account of their relationship.
The Doctor Who actress, 41, was married to actor turned political campaigner Fox from 2007 until 2016 and they have two sons together, Winston and Eugene.
She told British Vogue that she “had to make some choices and that a divorce speaks for itself”. She added that his family, including his sister Lydia Fox and her husband Richard Ayoade “might have a more interesting take” on him.
Piper, who recently starred in I Hate Suzie and is in the upcoming Netflix film Scoop about the explosive BBC Newsnight interview with the Duke of York, added that the privacy of her children is “paramount”.
Fox, 45, founded the Right-wing political group the Reclaim Party in October 2020, which is strongly associated with the “culture wars”, following an appearance on BBC show Question
Time – which he claimed resulted in him being “cancelled from a 21-year acting career”.
Last year, the actor – known for his role as DS James Hathaway in ITV detective series Lewis – was sacked as a presenter on GB News following comments he made about a female journalist.
‘It’s made me feel stronger in many ways. I’ve learnt I have a lot of resilience I didn’t know I had’
Asked on how she deals with co-parenting in the wake of Fox’s controversial remarks, Piper responded “with enormous difficulty.”
She added: “I close everything down and keep a very strict routine with the kids so that there’s consistency. I keep them close. That’s all I can do.
“I try to keep people from telling me stuff but it’s really, really hard. I don’t read it but everyone wants to talk about it. Sometimes I have to say to people: ‘Please don’t bring this to me, now or ever.”’
Piper also said: “It’s made me feel stronger in many ways. I’ve learnt I have a lot of resilience I didn’t know I had. I’ve had to learn the hard way that you can only control yourself and how you react to things. It’s really f***king hard... I hate that.”
She says that she also continues to be asked about her first husband, the radio DJ Chris Evans, who is 16 years her senior. “It was 20 years ago,” she added. “It makes slightly more sense to constantly be asked about husband number two, but even then I resent that because we’ve been separated for almost 10 years.”
Piper is currently in a relationship with Johnny Lloyd, lead singer of the band Tribes, with whom she shares a daughter called Tallulah.
This month, Ofcom said comments made by Fox on
Dan Wootton Tonight on Sep 26 “constituted a highly personal attack on ( journalist Ava) Ms Evans and were potentially highly offensive to viewers”.
The media watchdog ruled they were “degrading and demeaning both to Ms Evans and women generally” and “clearly and unambiguously misogynistic”.
After the ruling, Fox wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he was not “overly bothered about this anymore” and “could have expressed myself better, that’s life and I’ve said my bit”. Reacting to Piper’s latest comments, Fox wrote on X: “The children remain to this day, as they have done since we divorced, in a shared care 50/50 split between each parent. I do however take great exception to the assertion that co parenting with me is enormously difficult. I have never tried to deny our boys access to their mum and I would never wish her anything other than a stable family, which it seems continues to elude her.” He added that, while “not perfect”, he has done his “absolute best to put the kids first”.