Emma Thompson’s daughter takes swipe at mom’s ex Kenneth Branagh decades after Helena Bonham Carter affair
Kenneth Branagh is “just Ken,” at least to some people.
Gaia Wise, the daughter of Emma Thompson, took a public swipe at her mother’s ex-husband 30 years after his affair with actress Helena Bonham Carter.
She posted a cheeky meme from July 2023 to her Instagram story on Monday, quoting the iconic song from the “Barbie” movie and poking fun at Branagh.
“She’s everything. He’s just Ken,” the meme read with a picture of Thompson as Beatrice and Branagh as Benedick from the 1993 adaptation of “Much Ado About Nothing.”
The post was a cheeky dig at Branagh’s past behavior toward her mother, including his extramarital affair with Bonham Carter, 58.
The actress and Branagh met on the set of the 1987 miniseries “Fortunes of War” and married in 1989. Their relationship ended amid Branagh’s affair with Bonham Carter.
The former couple initially claimed they “drifted apart” due to conflicting work schedules as the reason for their split, per the New York Times.
“Our work has inevitably led to our spending long periods of time away from each other, and as a result, we have drifted apart,” they told the outlet in October 1995.
Thompson revealed her shock at Branagh’s infidelity in a 2022 interview with the New Yorker.
“I was utterly, utterly blind to the fact that he had relationships with other women on set,” she admitted. “What I learned was how easy it is to be blinded by your own desire to deceive yourself.”
In “Love Actually,” Thompson’s character goes through a similar fate when her husband has eyes for another woman.
“That scene in Love Actually where my character is standing by the bed crying is so well known because it’s something everyone’s been through,” she shared in 2018.
Despite the hurdle, the Oscar-winning actress holds no ill will toward Bonham Carter or her ex-husband.
“That is … all blood under the bridge. You can’t hold on to anything like that,” Thompson told the Sunday Times in 2013.
“It’s pointless. I haven’t got the energy for it … Helena and I made our peace years and years ago … she’s a wonderful woman,” she added.
All three actors later appeared as characters in the “Harry Potter” franchise.
Thompson portrayed Sybill Trelawney in “The Prisoner of Azkaban” (2004), “The Order of the Phoenix” (2007), and “The Deathly Hallows – Part 2” (2011). Branagh played Gilderoy Lockhart in “The Chamber of Secrets” (2002), and Bonham Carter portrayed death eater Bellatrix Lestrange in the final four films.
During the final year of her marriage to the “Dunkirk” actor, Thompson was working on “Sense and Sensibility” (1995), where she met her now-husband, Greg Wise. Wise was pursuing her co-star, Kate Winslet, at the time of filming.
Thompson and Greg wed in 2003 and they share two children: Gaia and Tindyebwa Agaba Wise.
As for Branagh, he married Lindsay Brunnock in 2003.
