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EMMERDALE star Matthew Wolfenden has marked his third anniversary with rarely-seen girlfriend Heather Scott-Martin as he moves from the collapse of his marriage to former co-star Charley Webb.

The actor confirmed his relationship with Heather after meeting the trained choreographer and dance teacher while starring in a West End production of Elf: The Musical in December 2023.

Just weeks earlier, Matthew, 46, announced the end of his five-year marriage to Charley in a joint statement – and later claimed he’d been dumped by his wife while she was touring UK theatres in playwright James Graham’s Quiz.

But he appeared to be back on his feet while celebrating his third anniversary with Heather in a new social media post on Sunday.

Sharing a handful of photos – among them a backstage shot of the pair at London’s Dominion Theatre as they prepared for Elf – he wrote: “Three years of you.”

Speaking exclusively to The Sun shortly after announcing their relationship, Matthew said they bonded over their respective splits.

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He said: “I met Heather doing Elf. Me and Charley had been separated for a few months and then Heather was the dance captain on Elf, she’s a choreographer and a dancer.

“She’d also recently separated from her long-term partner roughly the same time me and Charley had separated so we kind of had this common bond.

“All the cast used to go out for drinks and stuff and we’d end up sitting together and chatting about relationships and things that had happened, and that’s how we started chatting.

“We’d be the last ones in the pub still chatting, it was almost like it was meant to be, that we found each other.”

The actor – best known for his former role as David Metcalfe in Emmerdale – shares sons Buster, 14, Bowie, nine and five-year-old Ace, five, with ex-wife Charley.

Addressing their painful split during an appearance on the Lewis Nicholls Podcast in May 2025, Matthew claimed his former wife left him as he prepared for a new role on the West End stage.

He said: “It was Charley’s decision. Charley decided she wanted to separate. 

“It was hard, it was a hard time for me. By this point I’d decided to leave Emmerdale. Charley was on tour with a play called Quiz so I was leaving a job I’d been in for 18 years, I’d just been offered a job in the West End, so it was a big change for me. 

“I had the kids full time at that time because Charley was out on tour and then out of the blue I got this news that she wanted to separate. 

“It was a tough time for me, it was a time of big changes and then this on top of things wasn’t the best news in the world. But things happen for a reason.  

“It was the fact that the kids were quite young and it wasn’t only a couple of years ago. That was a concern to me. We had to move onwards.”

He added: “I didn’t expect it at all, it was a big shock. Separation is very difficult when you’ve spent 15 years together, your lives together and everything you own is together – just sorting out. 

“Especially when the separation happened when Charley was on tour and I was moving to London after leaving Emmerdale.”

Despite the abrupt split, Matthew claimed the former couple put their differences aside and found a way forward.

He added: “Everything was a bit up in the air for the first few months but we’re very very amicable, we’re still friends and we’ve got kids together so you have to be.

“We’re always going to have a relationship.”

Standing on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, Secretary Pete Hegseth looked up at the flattop’s superstructure and got a good indication of many of the targets the Lincoln Carrier Strike Group (CSG) destroyed during its six-month fight with Iran. In a photograph shared by the Pentagon’s image distribution site, Hegseth is seen examining a wall of so-called kill marks stenciled onto the superstructure.

By our count from the image and a video taken during Hegseth’s visit, both of which you can see below, there are 103 one-way attack (OWA) drone kill marks and 34 ship kill marks. These represent the number of each the CSG took out. It is unclear whether there are other kill marks we can’t see.

Though they resemble Shahed-136s, which are the most notorious of Iranian OWA drones, these silhouettes would represent all types shot down, and Iran has many. The same holds true for the ships. The photograph shows stencils of frigates or corvettes but these would be a generic symbol for surface craft kills.

On board to welcome the ship and its crew as it headed back to its home port of San Diego after a tumultuous and historic deployment, Hegseth extolled the strike group’s accomplishments. Reading from the Presidential Unit Citation awarded to the strike group for its work during Epic Fury, Hegseth noted that it shot down 77 one-way unmanned attack drones and sank 64 Iranian vessels between the start of Epic Fury on Feb. 28 until it departed the region on Aug. 22.

The Lincoln CSG also conducted 3,693 combat sorties, delivered 1.37 million pounds of ordnance, launched 450 Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles (TLAMs), destroyed 21 anti-ship cruise missiles and defended against four fast-attack craft and explosive-carrying wooden sailing vessels.

It is unclear at the moment why there are at least 26 more drone kill marks stenciled onto the Lincoln than the number of drones shot down listed in the unit citation and why there are 30 fewer ship kill marks than the tally noted in the citation. The Pentagon referred us to the Navy, and we are waiting for a response from the service.

There is a long tradition of kill marks being stenciled onto aircraft, vessels and other military equipment indicating the destruction of enemy equipment.

Kill marks on aircraft embarked aboard Lincoln indicate that the carrier strike group also destroyed several Iranian submarines and other weapons. These were not listed in the unit citation or in any kill marks stenciled onto the Lincoln that we could see.

An image provided to TWZ by aviation photographer Jeff Rojas, who goes by the handle @jro_photography on Instagram, shows a submarine kill mark on one of the F/A-18F Super Hornets of the U.S. Navy’s Strike Fighter Squadron 41 (VFA-41), the “Black Aces.” That is one of the aviation squadrons embarked on the Lincoln during Epic Fury.

Iranian naval vessels, including the country’s Russian-made Kilo class and other submarines, were top-priority targets during Epic Fury. The U.S. military has previously confirmed that air-launched AGM-114 Hellfire laser-guided missiles (likely fired from MQ-9 Reaper drones) and ground-launched Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) short-range ballistic missiles were employed against submarines, specifically.

In total, VFA-41 alone launched 421 missiles and bombs during its time supporting Operation Epic Fury. You can find the details in our story about the squadron here.

In addition, an image published by The Aviationist showed “an extraordinary array of target markings on a VMFA-314 F-35C, apparently representing an oil tanker, three submarines, a surface combatant, a Shahed-type drone, an artillery piece, and several ground-based launchers.”

Marine F-35C Also Sports Three Submarine Kill Markings After Operation Epic Fury

An exclusive image obtained by The Aviationist reveals an extraordinary array of target markings on a VMFA-314 F-35C, apparently representing an oil tanker, three submarines, a surface combatant, a…

— The Aviationist (@TheAviationist) October 5, 2026

It should also be noted that some of the drone kill marks seen on the Lincoln could have been the result of shootdowns by the carrier’s escorts. The Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyers USS Frank E. Petersen Jr, USS Spruance and USS Michael Murphy all serve as critical air defense platforms for the carrier strike group. Those vessels were also the ones launching the TLAMs, as well as potential submarine involvement.

Late Thursday morning local time, Lincoln finally returned home. The carrier departed San Diego on Nov. 21, 2025, and an arrival closed out a total deployment of 321 days, by our count. That’s just shy of the 326-day record USS Gerald R. Ford set in May, representing the second-longest deployment in the modern carrier era.

In addition to racking up successes against Iran, the marathon deployment drew scrutiny over the grueling conditions sailors and Marines experienced aboard. In August, crew families described supply shortages and difficult living arrangements, as TWZ reported at the time. The accounts led to widespread media coverage, which Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao called dishonest while also acknowledging that “a small number of mental health cases were treated with no loss of life, meal plans were adjusted when fresh resupply was unavailable, without a single meal being missed, calls home were limited when the operational threat was too high.” At least eight personnel across the strike group attempted suicide during the cruise, Cao wrote in a letter sent to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand that was obtained by CNN.

The kill mark stencils weren’t the only symbols of Lincoln’s deployment. On Wednesday, Hegseth used symbology to push back against concerns raised about the long journey.

“There were a few folks in the media who tried to turn the USS Abraham Lincoln into some sort of a symbol,” Hegseth said. “A symbol of dysfunction, or a symbol of low morale, or a symbol of a failed mission. And what I look out right here or when I talk to your leadership, and I haven’t had a chance to talk to a number of you, I know it’s the exact opposite.”

UPDATE: 5:59 PM Eastern –

After the Lincoln pulled into its home port, new images emerged. The following picture shows additional kill marks, including 10 of submarines.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com