Kate Winslet’s boyfriend, Ned Rocknroll, has been granted a divorce from Eliza Pearson, Viscount Cowdray’s daughter.
Just days after speaking of the torment that followed the breakdown of her marriage to the director Sam Mendes, Kate Winslet can now begin to look to the future.
“The decree absolute should come through soon, maybe this month,” Pearson said, in her first public comments since Rocknroll began his relationship with Winslet.
Ned, the nephew of Sir Richard Branson, changed his surname from Abel Smith by deed poll before he married Pearson, the eldest daughter of Viscount Cowdray, in an open-air pagan ceremony led by a druid in September 2009.
The lavish wedding took place at her family’s 17,000-acre Cowdray Park estate in West Sussex, England. Princess Beatrice, the daughter of the Duke of York, was among the guests.
However, the couple separated after just 20 months. Winslet’s friends say she did not begin her relationship with Ned, 33, who works for his uncle’s space venture Virgin Galactic, until after his decree nisi was granted on August 10.
