Their split came as no surprise to the Pilgrimage star.
Helen Lederer recently revealed how she always knew her first marriage was destined to end… many years before she’d even met her husband-to-be!
Helen, 70, is perhaps best known on TV for her comedy roles in Absolutely Fabulous, French and Saunders, The Young Ones and Bottom. Tonight (April 22) she continues her trek on BBC Two’s Pilgrimage: The Road Through The Alps.
However, despite her presentation on screen as a comedian and actress, Helen has also endured her share sadness away from the cameras, too.
Who is Helen Lederer married to?
Helen has been married twice, and is mum to actress Hannah Lederer-Alton, who she shares with her first husband Roger Alton.
He is a journalist and former editor of The Observer, while Helen’s second husband, Chris Browne, is a GP.
Helen and Chris got wed in 1999, just three weeks after her mum passed away. The couple first met in a car park as they attended a dinner dance.
Helen recalled on the Suddenly Single podcast: “My friend says she can still remember the moment our eyes met. It was very Mills and Boon.”
She went on: “I said something very witty about his bow tie, and he stood up for himself, so I thought, ‘Okay, Helen, lose the attitude!’ I’d been doing a lot of salsa, so we were on the dance floor doing some crazy moves, which he went along with.”
Helen added: “We married six months later.”
Helen Lederer split from first husband
However, Helen’s first marriage to Roger lasted only 19 months. Speaking to Best magazine, Helen didn’t seem all that surprised it didn’t work out. That’s because she felt the future had been ‘predicted’ for her while she was still a young schoolgirl.
She revealed: “In junior school we had this rule. On your thumb, if you have three creases, it is like your marriage line. It will show if you’re divorced. So of course, I just knew I was going to get divorced from the age of 10 because of the line on my thumb.”
Helen added: “It didn’t come as a shock when it happened. I thought, it is in the stars. Well, on my thumb.”
She went on, remembering her first meeting with the man who went on to be her first husband: “Someone had told me Roger had liked me. So I needed to know a person likes me because I find it hard to, certainly in those days, initiate. And so he walked in and I just thought, yeah, I’ll marry you. And because of the thumb thing, obviously I’ll divorce you.”
