Abigail Cruttenden played the unhappily married Kate Weedon on ITV’s Benidorm
Inside Benidorm Kate actress’ marriage to co-star before heartbreaking split(Image: ITV)
Benidorm’s Kate Weedon actress has a rather famous ex in real life.
Abigail Cruttenden joined the ITV sitcom in its first series in 2007 as short-tempered and unhappily married Kate. Kate rocked up at the iconic all-inclusive Solana resort with husband Martin (Nicholas Burns) and she was not at all impressed.
It didn’t take long for Kate to become a firm favourite with Benidorm viewers before her exit in 2009. As well as Benidorm, actress Abigail has appeared in the likes of Jane Eyre, Fresh Meat, Casualty, Citizen Khan and Midsomer Murders.
She also played Anna in the BBC sitcom Not Going Out from 2014 to 2023. And it turns out Abigail was once married to a fellow famous face: actor Sean Bean.
Abigail and Sean – who has starred in the likes of The Lord of the Rings, Games of Thrones and the James Bond series – met when they worked together on ITV’s Sharpe in 1996. On the show, she played Jane Gibbons, the on-screen wife of Sean’s character Richard Sharpe.
Talking about Sean at the time, Abigail previously said: “When I told people I was going to be working with Sean, they said: ‘My God, you’re so lucky’.”
As Free Library reports, she added: “He has such a huge appeal to women. And I think he is lovely – a very attractive bloke. We are in bed together a few times – even before we get married. Disgraceful, I know. Because you wouldn’t expect that from Sharpe.”
Although the pair didn’t strike up a romance straight away, Abigail and Sean ended up dating and got married in 1997. A year later they welcomed a daughter, Evie.
“I was there when Evie was born. It was a very moving experience, stunning,” Sean previously shared. However, in 2000 Abigail and Sean got divorced.
In 2003, Abigail married Jonathan R. Fraser and they have a daughter. As for Sean, the award-winning actor went on to marry Georgina Sutcliffe from 2008 to 2010, and Ashley Moore, whom he’s been married to since 2017.
Meanwhile rumours of a Benidorm return have been swirling for several years now. Discussing a potential return, Sherrie Hewson – who played Joyce Temple-Savage – acknowledged that the series would need to “move on” if it came back to television.
“I think Derren Litten (writer and creator) would bring in other people, different acts in the Neptune’s bar, different singers, and different families. It would be the same kind of thing, but you have to move on, don’t you?” she said.
She added: “There are people who couldn’t be in it because we’ve lost people. You’d have to move on and bring in new characters, which is actually quite exciting. Joyce would actually have to vet them all – that would be brilliant.”
Watch Benidorm on ITVX.