Ross Kemp's wild love life - 'rollercoaster' marriage and wife who 'straightened' him out

Daily Mirror

06-05-2025

Former EastEnders star Ross Kemp might be a well-known face on TV - but he prefers to keep his private life out of the spotlight. Here's everything we know about his love life
Ross Kemp is back on screens this week, researching his ancestors for the hit series, Who Do You Think You Are? But how much do you know about his family life at home? From his rollercoaster first marriage through to the arrival of his four children, we've taken a closer look at the EastEnders star's private life away from the cameras...
Rebekah Wade
Ross met his first wife, Rebekah Wade, at a golf tournament when she was deputy editor of News of the World and he was starring as Grant Mitchell in EastEnders. The couple got engaged in 1996, but in 1997 took a brief break 'due to work pressures'. They soon reunited and, in June 2002, they got married in Las Vegas.
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They encountered a rocky relationship, and Rebekah later revealed that their marriage was a 'rollercoaster', with her admitting to having an affair. They separated in 2006 and divorced in March 2009. That same year, Rebekah married racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks.
Speaking about her split from Ross, she said: "I think we were both working incredibly long hours… in completely different industries. The whole relationship was a bit of a roller coaster. Sometimes it was really good, and sometimes it wasn't so. I think that's how he would describe it."
Renee O'Brien
In 2012, Ross married his second wife, Australian-born Renee O'Brien, and the couple remains happily married to this day. The family like to keep their personal life private, and little is known about Renee. But Ross has briefly spoken about his wife in the past.
While discussing his intense filming schedule, the former EastEnders actor revealed his guilt about leaving his family. He told Metro Online: "Guilt, I think that's part and parcel of it. But I think, my wife didn't really know me from my soap days […] So when we [he and Renee] first got together, she just thought I was some kind of grumpy old bald bloke like in a bar – and she's probably right about that today, I'm still a grumpy old bald bloke in a bar."
In an interview on the Plot Twist podcast in 2022, he went into more detail and explained why his marriage has lasted. "Renee's pretty practical, she's Australian, she's a lawyer, she's very straight. She'd never seen EastEnders. She had no idea I was Grant Mitchell or anything like that and she didn't really understand that I was doing documentaries," Ross said.
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He also revealed how he misbehaved in the early days of their relationship, but Renee 'straightened him out'. "I'd just come back from Afghanistan when I first met her and I generally behaved quite badly the first four or five weeks," he admitted.
"I've changed now, obviously, but I used to go on a bit of a bender with some of the guys, and she sort of straightened me out. But she knows what I do and you know, there's a great saying, particularly used by mates of mine in the armed forces, which is 'quick goodbyes and long hellos'."
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Children
Ross is a proud father of four. After his divorce from his first wife, Rebekah, he welcomed his first child, a boy, with his former partner and makeup artist, Nicole Coleman. He and Renee also share three children together; a son Leo, born in 2015, and twins Ava and Kitty, born in 2017.
Speaking to the Mail Online in 2019, Ross said: "I'm very happy I've got my children and wouldn't have it any other way. I could have done it about a decade earlier though, I should've done.
"I was old, I was in my 40s, I was quite selfish before, in terms of you put yourself first, you look at what's going to be best for you and that totally goes out the window when you have children, you put your children way in front of everything you do."