Documentarian Louis Theroux has spoken candidly about his relationships over the years – from divorcing his childhood friend to almost splitting from his wife
Louis Theroux was once completely against marriage – but has tied the knot twice.
The BAFTA-award-winning filmmaker and journalist has been married to his wife, Nancy Strang, for over 10 years and they share three children together. But the couple didn’t always plan on getting hitched, as Louis previously thought weddings were ‘attention-seeking and phoney’ – and that was after he’d been married once.
Back in 1994, Louis tied the knot with his childhood friend, writer Susanna Kleeman, in New York. Their marriage was one of ‘convenience’ to keep her in the US, Louis later admitted, and they didn’t have any sentimental records of the day. After three years, they got divorced and Louis went on to find love again.
Speaking about his first love, Louis told The Financial Times in 2005: “My girlfriend was living with me in New York. She was having trouble finding work… legally. So we got married, to make it easier for her. It really was a marriage of convenience. I hope that I am not going to get arrested for that.” They went their separate ways in 2001 and Louis met TV producer Nancy.
“I began seeing her around the White City building. And I remember thinking ‘Wow, she’s beautiful’. She looked sort of like a French chanteuse,” Louis said on This City podcast in 2020. “And she was sort of fashionable, but sort of not aggressively stylish. People didn’t really say ‘hipster’ in those days, but she had a touch of hipster.”
Nancy once attempted to speak to Louis in a lift but he didn’t answer – although he later said that was “hard to believe”. He finally plucked up the courage to approach her at a Christmas party and they arranged to meet up the following day. But Louis “drank too much” and went in late, so their first date was postponed for a week.
The pair ended up hitting it off and had their first son, Albert, in 2006, followed by Frederick in 2008 and Walter in 2014. As time went on, fractures appeared in their relationship. Louis was travelling the world enjoying ‘buffet breakfasts and heated swimming pools’, while Nancy was at home coping with ‘childcare, tantrums and laundry’.
In his 2019 book, Gotta Get Theroux This, Louis talked about the friction that grew between them. “In certain respects, we communicated better when I was away. With the imposed calm of distance and the interface of the written word, she would express her frustrations at the life she found herself backed into,” he wrote.
Nancy felt like she’d given up everything for the family while Louis’ life continued unaltered. “For my part, I toggled between viewing myself as being unfairly victimised and put upon for making a living and – on the other hand – seeing Nancy’s side and wanting to do my best to support her and not wanting to be the stereotype of the guy whose wife is angry with him all the time,” he said.
Adding to their problems, he admitted, was that he ‘slightly undervalued’ Nancy for loving him. Louis was also staunchly against marriage and had an ‘inability to commit’. This all came to light at Louis’ 40th birthday lunch at home when they argued. For Louis, it was just a row – but for Nancy, it was the ‘moment she detached’.
“I should have known something was up when Nancy was complaining less than usual about my going away. For some reason, she was surprisingly relaxed about the two two-week trips to Israel to film in the Occupied Territories,” he said. “Then the real warning sign, which completely went over my head, was her saying: ‘You know, if you ever want to pursue an outside physical relationship, I would be OK with that’.”
The pair embarked on couples counselling and after a few months, Louis surprised them both by proposing at the top of a skyscraper in Los Angeles and they married in July 2013. In an interview in July 2020, Louis revealed that he always consults Nancy on his TV projects, which have included visiting brothels and porn shoots.
He told Who Magazine: “Clearly, I’m not going to do anything that’s going to make my wife too uncomfortable.” He added: “Nancy thinks that [I will retire soon], and I don’t know that I have the heart to tell her that I don’t see it on the horizon.”
- Louis Theroux Interviews Bear Grylls airs on repeat tonight on BBC Two at 9.45pm.
