Louis Theroux has been married twice in completely contrasting circumstances - because he described his first as a "marriage of convenience".
The documentary maker has been described as "obsessively private" and previously claimed he didn’t want to open up to stop him becoming a "human soap opera".
However, Louis, whose new three-part series Louis Theroux’s Forbidden America started on BBC One on Sunday night, has softened over the years.
He has spoken about living in his North West London home with wife Nancy Strang and their three children, Albert, 15, Frederick, 13, and six-year-old Walter.
But one of the most intriguing parts of Louis’ personal life is his first marriage to writer Susanna Kleeman, who he met at Westminster at the age of 15.
Louis had always refused to discuss his marriage to Susanna, who has released a short memoir and novel, but was happy to explain why it was so controversial.
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Louis and Susanna lived together in New York and decided to tie the knot for a reason other than love.
“You see, I was married,” Louis told The Financial Times in 2005. “What happened was that my girlfriend was living with me in New York.
“She was having trouble finding work...legally. So we got married, to make it easier for her.
“We never really considered ourselves married in the full sense – there were no wedding photos or anything like that.
“It was really a marriage of convenience. I hope that I am not going to get arrested for that.”
The former couple got divorced after three years of marriage from 1998 to 2001, then Louis went on to find romance with current wife Nancy Strang.
TV producer Nancy has worked on several award-winning productions, including Timewatch and Imagine, during her 20-year career in the TV industry.
She also co-founded production company Mindhouse Productions alongside her husband, where she also works as the director of development.
Speaking to Clara Amfo on her This City podcast , he recalled spotting Nancy around London and being stunned by her beauty.
He said: "I began seeing her around the White City building. And I remember thinking 'wow, she’s beautiful'. She looked sort of like a French chanteuse.
"And she was sort of fashionable, but sort of not aggressively stylish. People didn’t really say 'hipster' in those days, but she had a touch of hipster.
"She would go out and smoke cigarettes outside in front of the building. I saw her on these little trips. I would pass her in the corridors as she went out to smoke cigarettes."
Louis may be cool during his interviews, but he struggled to introduce himself to Nancy until he plucked up the courage to speak to her at a Christmas party.
But Nancy claimed they had already met as she once attempted to speak to Louis in a lift but he didn’t answer, although the documentary maker says he finds that “had to believe”.
They had arranged to meet up at work the following day but Louis “drank too much” and went in lake, so their first date was postponed for a week.
Louis and Nancy got married in July 2012 after a decade of being together and have three sons together.
In July 2020, Louis revealed that he always consults his wife on his TV projects, which have included visiting brothels and porn shoots.
He told Who Magazine : "Clearly, I'm not going to do anything that's going to make my wife too uncomfortable."
Louis added: "Nancy thinks that [I will retire soon], and I don't know that I have the heart to tell her that I don't see it on the horizon."
He may have the calmest presence on TV, but Louis has admitted to bouts of rage during lockdown at home with his wife and kids.
In December last year, he told The Mirror: “On one occasion the kids were just acting up and I just lost my sh*t royally and I found that for two or three days subsequently I couldn’t speak. I could whisper but that was it.
“I thought I’d broken my vocal cords, and for a while I wondered whether I might never be able to be in broadcasting again.”
Louis admitted there was “no hiding” while locked in with his family for 24 hours a day during lockdown.
He claimed he was “pretty chilled out” most of the time but was particularly triggered while trying to home school his son.
“But there were occasions where I was trying to home school my six-year-old, who was five at the time, whilst doing some work at the same time,” he explained.
“And then his app malfunctioned, and he was getting bored and then suddenly I got this strange sensation of sudden rage.
“It wasn’t a wake-up call exactly, but it was an embarrassing incident, and a strange passage of time.
“But it made me feel I wanted to own up to being every bit as maladapted and irritable and embarrassing as I am behind the scenes.”
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