‘I felt a dismal failure’: Kristin Scott Thomas reflects on ‘resentment’ after her 17-year marriage ended

When Kristin Scott Thomas' 17-year marriage to French fertility specialist François Olivennes ended in 2005, the actress reveals she felt a "dismal failure" and resented becoming "another statistic."

She even vowed not to marry again, believing she would remain single for the rest of her life. The star is now happily married again, surprising herself by tying the knot with John Micklethwait in 2024 at the age of 64.

However, the difficult feelings she experienced when her first marriage ended in divorce, appear to still feel raw for the actress.

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Appearing on an episode of Paloma Faith's Mad Sad Bad podcast, Kristin talks candidly about her divorce, sharing "I felt a dismal failure and the worst thing about it was that I became a statistic."

She continues, "I really resented that." Kristin also reveals her belief that men from older generations struggle to deal with the types of challenging feelings women can have, such as the ones she felt when she split from her husband.

"Men are terrified of female emotion," she says, adding, "They don't understand where it's coming from."

The actress believes that's changing, and having observed her sons and their friends, shares that they are more hands on as parents and dealing with feelings, calling them "thrilling, efficient and brilliant."

Her experience of men from her own generation had so far been that crying made them uncomfortable, and any difficult topics brought up would mean the subject being changed in case a woman cried.

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Kristin explains that moving to France and living there for a number of years taught her even more that female emotion was something to be feared by men.

She found living in the country to be a "rigid" and "uptight" experience, explaining, "The way I learnt to be in France was quite reserved, quite secretive, and less expansive."

Despite how she felt when her first marriage ended, and how men around her responded to her feelings, Kristin does share that her former husband remains "really present" in her life, suggesting that their relationship is amicable.

"I'm 65 now, and things have never been better," she says with a smile. Speaking to The Times about her second marriage, Kristin says, "To have two hearts, two brains, two minds, two energies all striving for the same thing is fantastic."

She continues, "What you’re looking for when you’re in your fifties and sixties is very different from what you’re looking for in your twenties, when you want to make babies and you’ve got the dream of a family thing going on."

Kristin tells Paloma that finding love again in later life has been "very freeing."