From the tragic loss of his wife to his difficult upbringing, here’s everything we know about the actor’s life away from the screen
Richard E Grant is one of the contestants who will be appearing on season two of Celebrity Traitors(Image: BBC/Bad Wolf)
A new line-up of celebrities are making their way to the Scottish Highlands for the second series of The Celebrity Traitors.
Once again, Claudia Winkleman will be back to front the popular BBC gameshow with 21 well-known personalities joining her for ten 60 minute instalments. The Faithfuls and Traitors will compete for a prize fund of £100,000, which will be donated to a charity of their choice.
The cast includes big names like Michael Sheen, Jerry Hall, Miranda Hart and esteemed actor Richard E Grant.
Many know the British actor from his performances in Withnail and I, the Age of Innocence, Saltburn and more recently The Other Bennet Sister, in which he played Mr Bennet. He’ll be appearing on our screens once more as he takes part in the biggest game of deception on TV.
Richard E Grant has played his fair share of characters on-screen, but many don’t know about the tragedy he has faced in his personal life.
From the tragic loss of his wife to his difficult upbringing, here’s everything we know about the actor’s life away from the screen. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter
The actor has an impressive social media prescence where he frequently posts to his one million Instagram followers. When filming The Other Bennet Sister he shared that his co-star and on-screen wife, Ruth Jones, was giving him a one-of-a-kind Gavin and Stacey tour of Barry Island.
In June 2025, the Hollywood star and devoted Gavin and Stacey fan finally visited Barry Island. He shared on Instagram at the time: “I am finally working with Ruth Jones in Wales and she generously gave me a tour of the @gavinandstaceytv locations this morning, helped by Marko! LUSH.”
In the footage Richard declares, “I’m here, in Barry with…”, before turning the camera towards Ruth. He went on to exclaim: “I’m at the house. Oh my god.”
The clip captures an enthusiastic Richard highlighting the property and street where the beloved sitcom was shot. He also ventured across the road to Uncle Bryn’s residence, before concluding his visit at Barry Island’s beach and Marco’s café.
Richard subsequently revealed why the programme holds such profound significance for him. He said, visibly moved: “Really emotional being here. The last moments of my wife’s life we watched Gavin and Stacey on repeat, and it just cheered us up endlessly. And I’m in Barry.”
Richard’s late wife Joan Washington passed away on September, 2 2021, following a diagnosis of stage IV lung cancer.
He met Joan Washington in the 1980s when he attended her studio for private voice coaching sessions. She was married to another man at the time, but they eventually became partners and wed three years afterwards when he proposed at an airport. The pair were married for 38 years and share a daughter, Olivia, and a stepson, Tom, from Joan’s earlier marriage.
Two days before Christmas 2020, Joan received a diagnosis of stage-four lung cancer and passed away eight months afterwards.
At the time, he posted a photograph of them dancing together in their kitchen to the song Only You when he revealed the tragic news on social media.
He wrote: “ONLY YOU! Joan – Love of my Life and Giver of Life to our daughter Olivia. Our hearts are broken with the loss of your Life. 35 years married and 38 together,” the actor tweeted alongside a clip of him and his wife of 35 years.
“To be truly known and seen by you, is your immeasurable gift. Do not forget us, sweet Monkee-mine.”
In a heartfelt letter to his wife published in the Daily Mail, he wrote: “It’s been my privilege to be by your side, sharing our last eight months together, enabling us to say everything we possibly wanted and needed to, so that when you asked Olivia and me two weeks ago ‘to let me go’, we unequivocally said ‘yes’.”
He also disclosed that the then Prince of Wales, King Charles, had paid a visit to Joan, whom he fondly called The Colonel, shortly before her passing.
He recalled: “Prince Charles came to see ‘The Colonel’ last month, sat beside her, took her hand and said, ‘It’s been an absolute honour to have known you, Joan’ to which she instantly quipped, ‘I’m still here.’ Which broke the ice and made all three of us cackle.
“Astonishingly, unlike me, she’s never been star struck and possessed the innate gift of speaking to everyone of any age or status as her equal.”
Following Joan’s death, Richard disclosed that he “edited” friends out of his life after they distanced themselves from him following Joan’s passing.
In an interview with The Times, the actor shared that he would never forgive those who kept their distance during that difficult period. Richard said: “I’m very unequivocal, black and white, all or nothing
“I’ve tried to go for the grey areas but it’s not succeeded for very long. There are people that have been edited out of my life and I will never see them again. If I had done that to them, I wouldn’t be able to look them in the face.
“No, portcullis down. Goodbye.”
He recently paid tribute to Joan on the fifth anniversary of her passing, saying: “Joan Washington and I were together for 38 years. She died five years ago this evening. Still feels like a blink away. Grief has gradually transmuted into gratitude for the gift of experiencing such profound Love.”
In the past Richard has also been open about his troubled childhood, and a disturbing account of when his father attempted to shoot him when he was a teenager.
Growing up he witness the collapse of his parents’ marriage, which resulted in his father receiving custody because of Richard’s troubled relationship with his mother, Leonne Esterhuysen.
After his parents divorcer, his father Henrik Esterhuysen, developed a dependency on alcohol, consuming a bottle of whisky nightly and becoming “a completely different person”.
Speaking on Davina McCall’s podcast Begin Again, the actor spoke about a situation where he tried to dispose of his father’s Scotch collection when he was 15, and his father responded violently by holding a gun to his head.
Richard said: “He tried to shoot me when I was 15 when I emptied all his Scotch supply down the sink. As I was half way through [pouring] the eleventh bottle, gun at the back of my head, I ducked, went off, ran to the garden. He finally found me, said ‘I’m going to blow your brains out,’ I said ‘go on, do it, just get this over and done with””
Grant said his father pulled the trigger but “because he was drunk it wavered so it went straight past and I fell to the ground and ran away”.
Despite the challenges of residing with his father, he revealed he would still have preferred living with his father than his mother, whom he has described as a “narcissist”.
He continued: “Even though he became an alcoholic after my mother left, the person who I knew and loved by day outweighed the monster that he turned into when he downed a bottle of Johnnie Walker.”
Richard’s father passed away from lung cancer in 1981, aged 51.
Following his mother’s death in 2023 aged 93, the actor reflected upon his “incredibly complicated relationship” with her. The two had been estranged for many years before reconciling when Richard reached adulthood.
Speaking on why he decided to join the second season of Celebrity Traitors, Richard said: “Because I think it’s a most brilliant game, where even Stephen Fry’s encyclopaedic knowledge of Sherlock Holmes couldn’t solve the mystery. You can’t have any clue.
“The Traitors are decided by a team of people and Claudia Winkleman, so there’s nothing to go on. Pack mentality prevails, where suspicion turns into accusation.”
You can watch Celebrity Traitors on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 8pm on Thursday, October 1.
