Strictly Come Dancing star Alex Kingston revealed the devastating reason she decided to leave her life in London and move to Los Angeles in 1997.
The 62-year-old ER actress was forced to flee the city after her relationship ended, and she struggled to cope with the repercussions of the separation.
Alex, who recently showed off her moves with South African professional Johannes Radebe on the current season of Strictly Come Dancing, was married to British acting legend Ralph Fiennes, 62, for two years before they split up.
The famous couple were in a relationship for a decade, having met in 1983, before they decided to tie the knot, and it was the Conclave actor who ultimately ended things as he had fallen for fellow actress and his Hamlet co-star Francesca Annis, 80, who was 18 years his senior.
Following this revelation, Alex found it too difficult to stay in the same city as her ex-husband and decided to start a new life across the pond, in America, where she filmed several series of ER.
She told the Daily Mail at the time: "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. Divorce is awful, but it is also something I don't regret happening to me because it has shaped who I am now."
© Ron Galella Collection via GettyAfter a period of reflection, Alex offered more insight into her feelings towards her former husband and said: "We were like strangers – very fragile. His mother was dying, and somehow we thought that the wedding was going to heal everything. But that was crazy, of course."
Finding love after heartbreak
Despite the devastation of her divorce from Ralph, Alex met and married her second husband, German writer Florian Haertel, in 1999, after moving to Los Angeles.
She previously told The Evening Standard about their meeting and said: "I was very nervous when I met him because I thought it was some awful newspaper scam where I was being set up: he was going to get to know me, get all the intimate details, then publicise it.
© PA Images via Getty Images"So I didn't trust him for a long time. It makes me cringe to think of it now."
However, the relationship didn't last, and the pair went their separate ways in 2009, finalising their divorce in 2013.
Alex welcomed one daughter with Florian, Salome Violetta Haertel, who was born in 2001. At 24 years old, Salome has followed in her mother's footsteps and is an actress and producer.
© FilmMagicTwo years after her second divorce, the actress walked down the aisle to another writer, Jonathan Stamp.
They exchanged their vows in the All Saints Anglican Church in Rome, Italy and have since decided to keep their relationship away from Hollywood's cameras and continue to stay out of the limelight as a couple.
