Sam Claflin has opened up about his emotional divorce from ex-wife Laura Haddock that led him to eventually seek therapy.
The Daisy Jones & The Six actor, 36, recently spoke to GQ about his 2019 split from The Inbetweeners star. The former couple were married for six years and share two children: son Pip, seven, and daughter Margot, five.
In the interview published on 20 March, Claflin spoke candidly about struggling to care for his two children shortly after their split, just as the world was forced into lockdown. “Every breakup is difficult, and obviously having kids makes it even more,” Claflin said. “During Covid I really f***ing struggled with the kids and, mentally, where my life was. Working through that, I’ve started getting to a point where I’m not afraid of saying no anymore.”
“It’s a horrendous thing to go through,” he added.
In the Amazon Prime series Daisy Jones & The Six, Claflin plays frontman Billy Dunne. The show, which was adapted from the bestselling book of the same name by Taylor Jenkins Reid, follows a fictional Fleetwood Mac-esque band’s rise to fame and their tumultuous behind-the-scenes relationship.
Speaking to GQ, Claflin explained how his own divorce allowed him to relate to Billy Dunne’s marital problems in Daisy Jones & The Six. When he signed on to play Dunne, Claflin himself had just ended his marriage to Haddock. He went on to admit that it was the first time he found it easy to cry on screen, saying: “These emotions are still quite raw for me. I can just take from that and put myself in this situation because I lived through it.”
Claflin also opened up about the personal things that he’s “working on in therapy” – such as the “horrifying experience” of listening to himself sing over a soundtrack or his people-pleasing habits.
“One of the reasons I became an actor is that I always want people to like me,” the Me Before You star admitted. “I think it’s only recently dawned on me that I try so hard to make other people happy that I don’t know who I am. I’m from Norfolk but I’ve just adopted an accent that no one can really put a flag on. It’s an amalgamation of other people’s accents. Over time I’d sort of lost, I don’t know…What makes me happy?”
In August 2019, Sam Claflin and Laura Haddock announced their split in a joint Instagram post. “Laura and I have decided to legally separate,” wrote the British actor on his Instagram story. “We will move forward with nothing but love, friendship and a deep respect for one another whilst we continue to raise our family together.”
“We won’t be commenting on this further,” the statement continued. “Thank you in advance for your support and respecting our privacy at this time. Both of us x.”
The couple first met at an audition back in 2011 and tied the knot two years later. These days, Claflin is in a relationship with 29-year-old model Cassie Amato, who he tells GQ he met on the dating app Raya.
