Who Is Dominic West's Wife? The Crown Star Married Into Royalty

Dominic West is taking over the role of Charles, Prince of Wales in the newest season of The Crown, and just like the royal he’s playing on TV, he’s had a complicated personal life. West is currently married to Catherine FitzGerald, a former girlfriend from his college days. But prior to rekindling their relationship and tying the knot in 2010, West also dated Polly Astor and had a daughter named Martha. And in 2020, pictures of West and his Pursuit of Love co-star Lily James kissing in Italy were made public, momentarily straining his relationship with FitzGerald. However, West and his wife presented a united front and stayed together during the worst of the backlash.

So who exactly is Catherine FitzGerald? Well, to start, she’s part of the FitzGerald family dynasty, an Irish and British aristocratic family dating back generations. Her father Desmond had the title of Knight of Glin, but Catherine did not have an official title as it passes down through the male line. Still, she grew up in the family’s ancestral castle in Ireland, where she and West spend half of their time today. She went on to attend Trinity College in Dublin, which is where she first met her future husband while living “in a tiny room on campus.”

"We had a wonderful love affair," she told the Irish Independent in 2021 about their initial love affair when they were younger. “We would look over Dublin, reading poetry to one another with the mountains in the distance. We had all the time in the world to explore the pubs and back streets and walk the canal. But at the end of the summer, I left him,” she admitted. “And he has not let me forget it! But I couldn't have settled down with him right then forever. That would not have been a good idea for either of us.”

In the years since their first coupling, FitzGerald made a career as a landscape designer and gardener in Ireland. Some of her landscaping projects have included Hillsborough Castle and Holland Park Avenue, as well as the gardens of her ancestral home. She got married to another royal, Edward Lambton, 7th Earl of Durham, in 1995 but they divorced in 2002. She and West reconciled shortly after that through a mutual friend and tied the knot in 2010.

Now, she and West live in Ireland with their four daughters. After West was photographed with James, FitzGerald stood by her husband saying their relationship has “had its ups and downs of course, like everybody, but we are totally devoted to each other and to our full, vibrant family life together.”