Hannah Waddingham Ditched Nearly A Decade Of The Single Life For Dreamy Surgeon Boyfriend

Hannah Waddingham has found love again. After dedicating the better part of the last decade to herself and her daughter, the "Ted Lasso" star felt ready to open herself up to new romance when she met spine surgeon Nick Beresford-Cleary (seen above) sometime in 2025 (though details of their meet-cute are unclear). "It's taken me eight years," she told Women's Health UK in May 2026. "I didn't really have the space mentally or emotionally for that. I've hunkered down and focused on my girl and me."

Before falling for Beresford-Cleary, Waddingham was in a relationship with Italian hotelier Gianluca Cugnetto, with whom she welcomed her daughter, Kitty, in July 2014, right when she turned 40. Waddingham, who might also look familiar to "Game of Thrones" fans who remember her as the "Shame Nun" Unella, split from Cugnetto in 2017 and remained single until Beresford-Cleary entered the picture. "Now I'm ready to stick my head above the parapet a bit more," she revealed. Without mentioning Beresford-Cleary by name, the actor didn't hide her happiness about her love life. "It's really lovely too, obviously, my relationship. But the best thing about it is, firstly, being happy and strong in myself," she gushed.

In 2024, Waddingham opened up about single life, arguing that she learned that being in no relationship is infinitely better than being in a bad relationship. "As soon as I get a whiff of somebody bringing me down, I think, 'Next! Goodbye. What's your name again?'" she said on "Josh Smith's Great Chat Show" in 2023. It took work to get to this point, but here she is.

It is unclear when Hannah Waddingham met Nick Beresford-Cleary, but her remarks about spending eight years as a single woman suggest it was in 2025. However, they weren't publicly linked until March 2026, when they attended the Cheltenham Festival together. By that point, Waddingham was clearly not trying to hide the relationship, as they were holding hands and displaying lots of PDA. They made their red carpet debut in June 2026, when he accompanied the Emmy winner to a London event. She's been all smiles next to him ever since.

Waddingham will accept nothing else. Having entered her 50s in July 2024, she is determined to leave her negative relationship habits in the past. "In my 20s and 30s and maybe the beginning of my 40s, I would allow myself to be dimmed by negative men," she said in the "Josh Smith's Great Chat Show" interview. This wasn't the first time Waddingham hinted at having gone through a negative experience in the past. "The greatest thing about this job is that it has allowed me great catharsis from a controlling, verbally abusive relationship that I'd had," she told Entertainment Weekly in 2021, without going into details.

Waddingham has also been candid about the anxiety-inducing experience of being thrown into single motherhood. "People go, 'Oh yes, I'm by myself most of the time.' But that's not the same as being sole provider," she said in the Women's Health interview. Her point suggests that her ex wasn't very involved, at least in the beginning. "It felt like the rug was pulled from underneath me," she told Glamour in 2023, noting that their co-parenting relationship has gotten better.