When Lenny Henry announced he was leaving Comic Relief this year, after 39 years running the charity telethon, he admitted it was partly because the band of comedians who started it with him were no longer by his side.
The comedian, 65, has fronted Red Nose Day specials since its inception as a charity in 1985, but confirmed this month’s show will be his last.
Sir Lenny Henry said radio times He “missed the gang” of fellow comedians who co-hosted with him in the ’80s, including his ex-wife Dawn French, 66, Jennifer Saunders, Billy Connolly and the late Victoria Wood.
Sir Lenny was married to French for 25 years and the couple share a daughter, Billie, but went their separate ways in 2010.
Here, FEMAIL explores how the couple became a comedy powerhouse after marrying in 1984 and have achieved what many couples in the public eye struggle with: remaining friendly, often appearing at the same events, after their separation. .
Comedy Power Couple: Lenny Henry married Dawn French in 1984 in a celebration that Lenny said was held in a ‘fancy chi-chi room.’
Lenny presented Comic Relief with Dawn during the 80s. The pair are pictured together at the Comic Relief press launch in 2005.
The former couple met on the comedy circuit and both rose to stardom in the early ’80s on the television series The Comic Strip.
It was Dawn who convinced Lenny to move into alternative comedy, where he quickly made his mark as a stand-up actor.
After endless hours telling jokes and going through the motions of comedy, the couple ignited a heady love that would make most relationships envious.
Being the IT couple of the early 80s, the couple decided it was time to make it official and get married in 1984 at London’s Covent Garden.
As fans across the country looked on in awe at their beautiful celebration, Lenny called the event a “chic and classy chi-chi ballroom.”
After the glamorous wedding, the couple decided their duo would become a family trio in the early ’90s. After years of trying to conceive, they adopted their daughter Billie, 33, when she was just two weeks old.
Dawn told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘I was sorry for a while. I had miscarriages, so I felt sad about that too.
The couple adopted their daughter Billie when she was two weeks old. Billie is pictured with Lenny and Dawn in 2005.
The couple decided to adopt Billie after struggling to conceive. Lenny and Dawn are pictured in 2009.
But the moment Billie arrived that was it for me. She fulfills everything she needed to be a mother.’
The Vicar Dibley star said it was the “greatest achievement” of his life.
However, after more than two decades together, their marriage was over. In 2010, Dawn and Lenny divorced due to his “unreasonable behavior.”
There were rumors that Lenny cheated on Dawn in 1999, an accusation he denied. The move shocked the nation and the couple has not given much insight into why their seemingly happy life ended in divorce.
A statement issued on behalf of the couple at the time said: “The separation is entirely amicable and they have every intention of maintaining their close friendship.” His priority is to commit to the future co-parenting of his daughter.’
The couple began to drift apart, leading to their eventual divorce in 2010. The couple is photographed a year earlier, in 2009, at their Berkshire home.
Lenny became involved in a cheating rumor in 1999, an accusation he has consistently denied. The couple is seen in 2010.
For six years, the topic of their breakup was taboo… until 2016, when Lenny hinted that the couple thought about divorce for a while before it happened.
In an interview with Expresssaid: ‘There is usually a situation where one spouse wants the marriage to end more than the other.
“I think maybe one of us did it, then the other, and then the other for a period of time and then at the end we thought, ‘Oh, actually, maybe we’ll both do it.’ We knew it wasn’t possible.” continue,” he added.
Dawn did not comment publicly on the divorce at the time, but her unofficial biographer, Alison Boyer, said the comedy duo had been “getting over” their marriage before splitting.
There was much speculation about the decline of their love in the final years of their marriage, and subtle signs appeared that the couple was falling out of love.
In 2009, Lenny found himself on stage in London to collect a prestigious theater award for his critically acclaimed performance in Shakespeare’s Othello.
As usual, the couple put on a brave performance of togetherness as Henry towered over his short wife and smiled at her.
Lenny co-founded the charity with Richard Curtis and has fronted Red Nose Day specials since its inception as a charity in 1985. Lenny is pictured in 1989
The key to the reality behind the facade they were trying so hard to maintain was that Dawn’s usual megawatt smile was faint, as she posed for photographs with her hand placed rather awkwardly on her husband’s shoulder.
At that point, they had been secretly separated for six months. Even when their silver wedding anniversary came and went, in fact, they were busy analyzing the details of their separation.
Many speculated that the couple simply never got over Henry’s alleged flirtation with a young blonde in a hotel room 11 years earlier, which he has always denied.
The couple waited until Billie turned 18 to announce their separation and the couple continued to live together under the same roof in their £2.4 million seaside home on the Cornish coast.
In 2012, Lenny began dating Lisa Makin (pictured with Lenny this month). Despite being together for over a decade, the couple has not married.
After the separation, the couple has always been able to maintain a friendly relationship in front of the cameras.
Dawn told The Mirror after their split: “Surprisingly, we seem to have gone relatively easily from a 25-year marriage to a long-lasting friendship. I’m in awe of us – there’s no war, we’ve turned out to be the best of friends. There were many good years, but last year there was a difficult one.
In 2012, Lenny began dating theater mogul Lisa Makin. Despite a long-standing relationship, the couple has resisted going to the altar.
Dawn said she managed to transition with “relative ease” from a romantic relationship to a friendship with her ex-husband. She appears in the photo in 2023.
And this year, their displays of warmth towards one another have continued following Lenny’s decision to leave Comic Relief.
The comedian, who co-founded the charity with Richard Curtis in 1985, told the Radio Times.: ‘We were like a little gang. But for a few years I’ve been wondering, “Where’s the new gang?”
“(Comic Relief) is a baton that will be handed over to a new group of people who will take charge of Comic Relief.”
Lenny then tipped his replacement after praising David Tennant, who hosted the show in 2019 due to theater commitments.
Saying: ‘I thought, well, actually, (David was) brilliant. And I think there are other people, newer people, who are emerging like Romesh Ranganathan, Alesha Dixon, AJ Odudu.
“Now there are new people emerging who can absolutely take the reins.”
However, Sir Lenny admitted that while he wouldn’t be on screen during the big night, he would continue to work for the charity behind the scenes as its life president.