Sharon Horgan says she’s ‘angry’ she didn’t end her marriage sooner

Sharon Horgan has opened up about her divorce from TV producer Jeremy Rainbird.

The Bad Sisters star married Rainbird in 2005 and welcomed two daughters, Amer and Sadhbh, before divorcing in 2019.

Horgan admitted she’s “angry” at herself for not realising her marriage was over sooner and revealed she is raising her children alone, without help from her ex-husband.

Speaking to Elizabeth Day on the How to Fail podcast, Horgan said her divorce as “a long-time coming” and felt the final decision to pull the plug was “connected to confidence”

The Catastrophe star explained she and Rainbird “made it work for a long time” as they welcomed their daughters and her husband became involved with her production company, Merman.

“But there came a point where it was so clear that it wasn’t right for either of us,” she said.

“I don’t know whether it’s slightly being Catholic, some of that stuff was still in me, that idea of not getting a divorce or you just don’t get a divorce.”

She continued: ‘It’s so hard to go through a divorce and weirdly when I made the show Divorce, I hadn’t gone through it, and I was sort of using other people’s experiences and the idea that anyone who’s been married knows what it’s like to want a divorce, but I had no idea.”

Horgan added of her decision: “It’s an odd one because, I’ve never been happier but I’m angry at myself, not for the failure of the marriage but for not figuring it out earlier.

“It’s so destructive I think, and I mean you get one life and that’s an awful lot of time to spend on something that’s not working.”

The TV star reflected that divorce has had “such a positive impact on my life” but noted the “less fun” aspect of legal separation is the costly admin.

“It’s debilitating, time-consuming, money draining it’s not fun for anyone,” she said.

“It’s such a massive move to make that you do need that clarity to move forward with it. I had an inkling that it was going to take over four years and it did.”

When asked by Day about her experience of co-parenting with her ex-husband, Horgan said: “There’s no co-parenting it’s just me.”

Horgan also revealed she has moved on and is currently in a romantic relationship. However, she didn’t share the identity of her new partner.

Elsewhere in the interview, Horgan admitted filming the second season of her Bafta-winning series Bad Sister had been a struggle due to the death of her father in 2023.

“This can be a bit unhealthy this job,” she said of acting. “It was weird going back to work. In the end, we had to shut down the production because I couldn’t.”

She added: “In some ways it’s great and it’s cathartic and you can connect with your feelings, and you can express them. But in other ways, it feels so weird because essentially, you’re using your emotions, and it feels strange and a bit wrong.”