Strictly 2025: Who Is Alex Kingston And What's Her Link To Ralph Fiennes

Graziadaily

a day ago

Alex Kingston will be shimmying into sequins and fake tan as she vies for Glitterball glory, after it's been announced that her next role is as a contestant on the new series of Strictly Come Dancing. The star of Doctor Who and ER said, 'Aaaaagghhh!!!!!!' as the news was announced on The One Show. Alex joins Dani Dyer, Gladiators star Nitro, former footballer Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and EastEnders actress Balvinder Sopal, who have been confirmed for the 2025 line-up of BBC's dance competition so far.
Alex has made no secret of her love for Strictly, saying in 2019, 'Sarah Hadland [who took part in 2024] and I talked about how much we'd like to do Strictly. Then I discovered she's a trained ballet dancer. So, I can't do it on a season when she is on it!'
Ahead of the show's launch in September, here's everything to know about Alex…
Alex Kingston ©for Pragnell
Alex Kingston is an award-winning actress and star of stage and screen.
Alex was born on 11 March 1963, making her 62 years old.
Alex is best known for playing Dr Elizabeth Corday in medical drama series ER throughout the mid-90s and the Noughties. She's also recognised for portraying the Time Lord's companion River Song in Doctor Who. Other notable roles include Moll Flanders in The Fortunes And Misfortunes Of Moll Flanders, Dinah Lance in superhero drama series Arrow, Sarah Bishop in A Discovery Of Witches and Mrs Bennet in ITV period-drama Lost In Austen.
Alex is married to TV producer and documentary maker Jonathan Stamp, who she wed in Italy in 2015. She has been married twice before: to actor Ralph Fiennes and to German journalist Florian Haertel, with whom she shares daughter Salome, 24.
Alex Kingston and Ralph Fiennes ©Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
Alex and Ralph met while they were both students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and were together for ten years before they married in 1993. 'We were like strangers, very fragile,' she said. 'His mother was dying and somehow we thought the wedding was going to heal everything. But that was crazy, of course,' she said.
Their relationship came to an end two years later when Ralph, then 32, had an affair with his Hamlet co-star Francesca Annis – who was 18 years his senior and played his on-stage mother. He left Alex in 1996, and they divorced the following year. She said that the split left her devastated.
'I was feeling worthless, that I would never find anyone else as good as my husband, which is ridiculous, but I had so little self-esteem,' she said. 'Divorce is awful but it is also something I don't regret happening to me because it has shaped who I am now.'
Time has helped her heal. 'I feel no connection to him… It's been so long, I can't quite believe I was ever married to him,' Alex said in 2012.
Shereen Low is a senior news and entertainment writer for Grazia UK, who enjoys watching everything from Love Island and Race Across The World to real-life crime shows and thrillers.