Like father, like daughter: As Bill Nighy hints at being secretly married, his actress daughter Mary quietly wed her long-term partner too

DAILYMAIL.COM • 6h ago

By GAVRIELLA EPSTEIN-LIGHTMAN 10:32 04 Oct 2026, updated 10:49 04 Oct 2026

Bill Nighy apparently thought little about marriage as an institution before shocking fans by revealing he had once tied the knot.

The actor – who has always been something of an unlikely heart-throb – inadvertently revealed his secret marriage last week as he explained why he can’t wear rings due to his ‘knobbly knuckles’.

Nighy, 76, did not reveal the identity of his one-time bride and details of the union remain a mystery.

But the Daily Mail can now reveal that the Love Actually star is not the only member of the family who has kept their wedding under wraps.

For it seems his daughter Mary has not only followed in her father’s footsteps into the world of acting but has also chosen to marry in secret.

We can reveal that Mary, who is mother to the star’s two grandchildren, also secretly tied the knot.

For the past 12 years, Mary, 42, has been married to French-born media consultant Louis Dumoulin.

While no records of Nighy’s marriage can be found in the UK, Mary tied the knot with Louis, also 42, at a ceremony in Islington in August 2014.

The couple have two daughters, born in 2016 and 2020, but until now have been known as long-term partners rather than husband and wife.

Mary has never spoken publicly about the marriage and her rare social media postings mainly focus on her work.

While Louis gets the occasional mention, Mary never refers to him as her husband.

In 2018, she posted a photo on Instagram with Louis as they prepared to celebrate their elder daughter’s birthday – recycling French flag decorations from the recent World Cup because they didn’t have any bunting to hand.

Two years later she went on to post images of their last holiday as a family of three – with Mary preparing to give birth to their second daughter.

A month later in September 2020, Mary announced the birth had taken place – ‘at home on the sofa’ with the help of the ‘brilliant’ home birth midwives from an east London hospital.

Louis is also an infrequent Instagram user. He mainly posts in French but referred to Mary as his wife in a post from a trip to Madeira. This included a photograph of Mary with a caption reading: ’the recipe for a good holiday was: “My wife, a real estate fantasy and some nice backdrops”‘.

Mary was born and raised in London, the daughter of Nighy and his long-term former partner actress Diana Quick, 79.

Diana – who starred as raven-haired Lady Julia Flyte in Brideshead Revisited – was married to Scottish actor Kenneth Cranham from 1974 until they divorced four years later.

She met Nighy when they worked together in David Hare’s A Map of the World at the National Theatre in 1982 and the couple remained together for 26 years before splitting in 2008.

Mary, who made her acting debut in 1998, studied English at University College London, and landed her first high profile role in her final year – in Sofia Coppola’s 2006 historical drama film Marie Antoinette.

In more recent times she has since turned her attention towards directing. Her debut feature film Alice, Darling which explores coercive control within relationships, was released in 2022.

She has also directed episodes of TV shows like Say Nothing, Industry, Silent Witness and Traces.

In an interview in 2023, Mary revealed that her parents discouraged her from entering the industry, partly due to her mother’s own experiences as a young woman.

She said: ‘It took my breath away, the objectification of her body. She was very matter-of-fact telling me all this. I felt like crying, I couldn’t bear it. ’

In Mary’s younger days it was her mother – who once featured on a Sunday magazine cover which asked: ‘Is this the most beautiful woman in the world?’ – who was the main breadwinner.

Things changed for Nighy, who was then in his fifties, when he shot to international stardom playing the role of ageing rock star Billy Mack in Love Actually which landed him a Bafta for best supporting actor in 2004.

That year, he was also named best actor in Bafta’s TV awards for his role as a newspaper editor in the political thriller State of Play.

Proud Mary said of her father: ‘He’d worked for so many years, with so many good people, and was really owning it by the time it all came together.’

While his acting work has continued to flourish, Nighy’s unlikely reinvention as an agony uncle has seen him find new success as a podcaster.

Just days ago, he was named best host at the British Podcast awards beating off competition from the likes of Louis Theroux, Katherine Ryan and Lily Allen.

His Ill-Advised series, described by judges as ‘irresistibly endearing’ is aimed at ‘people who don’t get out much and can’t handle it when they do’.

Described as ‘a refuge for the clumsy and awkward’ it sees the actor offer wry advice to listeners as he tackles their questions about their dilemmas focusing on subjects ranging from life in general to music and books.

While the actor had always steered clear of his personal life during interviews over the years, it was during a recent episode that it emerged he had once been married after all.

Nighy – who has been romantically linked to Vogue editor Dame Anna Wintour since 2015 – recalled the time ‘when I was married’ but sadly went on to reveal how his wedding ring had ended up getting lost at sea.

He said: ‘I can’t wear rings because I’ve got funny hands.

‘I was called “Knucks Nighy” at school because I had knobbly knuckles.

‘When I was married, I had a wedding ring and I went into the sea and it came off. I had to wear such a big ring to get it over my knuckle that it came off in the sea. I lost the ring.

‘It was the only time I’d ever had a ring, but it was so big, as I say, in order to accommodate the deformity of my knuckles, that it didn’t last long.’

During his relationship with Diana, Nighy pointed out that the couple were not legally wed.

In an interview in 2006, two years before their split, he said: ‘We’re not legally sanctioned. We live in what my grandmother would call sin, but I don’t care, and neither does she.’

Then in 2015, he explained the reasons why he had never been married saying that it had never appealed to him when he was younger.

He said: ‘There was nowhere for me to go. Marriage is sort of back in now, isn’t it? There wasn’t a lot of it about back then.

‘Where are you going to go? I have no God. A register office didn’t sound like much. I don’t think the tax situation was very beneficial. I don’t think anybody would have married me anyway. But it just wasn’t a thing you did.’

After their split Nighy remained on good terms with Diana and they continued to spend time together as a family.

Nighy has long been rumoured to be in a relationship with Wintour, 76, with speculation gathering pace after they made a high-profile appearance arm-in-arm at the Met Gala in New York in 2023.

But a representative of the star said at the time: ‘Bill and Anna have simply been great friends for two decades. They are not in a relationship.’

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