Helena vists A Therapy Clinic And Rufus’s Marriage Fails To Reach A First Anniversary.
Their Love lives have taken on a twist of Shakespearean tragedy.
For Helena Bonham Carter and Rufus Sewell, the trials and tribulations of life off screen has become more difficult than many of the Bard’s most complex plots.
The stars, who both have Shakespearean acting credits in their CVs, are said to be nursing broken hearts. Yesterday Sewell was coming to terms with the collapse of his marriage to fashion buyer Yasmin Abdallah less than a year after their wedding.
And Miss Bonham Carter is still struggling to make sense of her five-year affair with Shakespearean devotee Kenneth Branagh, said to have been rekindled after it ended in September last year.
“They are back together, but I don’t think things are easy,” a friend said. “It’s difficult and very private. They are in a slightly loose relationship, which may be why they’re keeping it very quiet.”
Miss Bonham Carter, who has starred in Hamlet and Twelfth Night, has been visiting an alternative therapy clinic which specialises in healing and relationship counselling.
She spent more than two hours at the centre in St John’s Wood, North London, which offers “colour” healing, acupuncture and crystal workshops.One of the practitioners attached to the studios gives counselling for couples.
Another practises ‘transpersonal psychotherapy”.
Miss Bonham Carter left looking downcast and clutching a copy of an American self-help manual. The 1978 book To Love Is To Be Happy With, by American author Barry Neil Kaufman, contains advice on independence and self-esteem.It asks: “Do you want to be happier? Are you afraid of being hurt in relationships?”
The central idea of the book is that individuals should let go of expectations of each other.
Everyone is responsible for their own happiness, and the happier people are, the more they are loved.
The visit clearly provided food for thought for Miss Bonham Carter, who
started her affair with Branagh, formerly married to Emma Thompson, in 1994.
He and his new love never committed to living together, and were seldom seen
side by side in public.
But last year Miss Bonham Carter declared: “I’m definitely happy and in love.”
The subsequent break-up plainly left her miserable, and she attended the premiere of The Theory of Flight, in which they both starred, alone and dressed in black.
In recent weeks, however, they have been seen together at several showbusiness events, although they were careful to leave separately. They were even spotted kissing in the street near Miss Bonham Carter’s home in Belsize Home, North London.
When asked if they were together again, she smiled and said: “I’m not going to comment. I never did before and I’m not going to now. We might have been seen kissing but I’m not going to say anything.”
… Sewell, , who appeared in Kenneth Branagh’s film of Hamlet, blamed ‘irreconcilable differences’ for the end of the marriage.
He married Miss Abdallah in a low-key ceremony in London last March. They had no honeymoon because he was due on stage in Macbeth that evening, and after the marriage ceremony the bride was on a flight to Australia because her visa had run out. Days later the couple were spotted at The Ivy restaurant in Covent Garden celebrating their marriage and Miss Abdallah being a legal entrant into Britain.
Sewell said at the time: ‘Yasmin is a wonderful person. I feel very lucky.’ Yesterday his agent confirmed that the marriage was over a fortnight before they would have celebrated their first anniversary. ‘Rufus is now moving ahead with his life and concentrating on his career, said agent Tor Belfrage.
Sewell, best known for his appearances in Cold Comfort Farm, the BBC TV adaptation of Middlemarch and British movie Martha Meet Frank, Daniel and Lawrence, fell for Miss Abdallah after a brief liaison with Kate Winslet. His most famous romantic encounter could have been with Madonna. But he refused to go out with her when she pursued him for a date.
