Lara Eyre Reveals Charlie Hunnam Was Married During Their Relationship

A Married At First Sight star has revealed she once dated Hollywood star Charlie Hunnam – who later dumped her before rekindling their romance until she met his wife.

Lara Eyre, 53, who appeared on the 2022 series of the hit E4 programme, has opened up about her relationship with the actor in the late nineties and noughties.

The pair were first introduced to each other by soap star Antony Cotton in 1999 when Lara was 25 and Charlie just 19 at the start of his career.

She had been watching gay drama Queer as Folk where Antony had starred alongside Charlie and Lara expressed her attraction towards him.

She admitted: ‘We just hit it off. I liked him a lot straight off the bat. He had this way of making you feel really special.’ 

The pair’s relationship flourished with Lara claiming Charlie was going to take her with him to America as he attempted to crack Hollywood.

However, Lara told The Sun how his phone one day disconnected and Charlie’s agent at the time refused to provide information including his new number, leaving her ‘accepting this is it’.

Six months later Lara received a call form Charlie and claims he wanted them to move in together and rekindle their romance.

With the couple back dating, Charlie failed to mention how he was married to director Robert Towne’s daughter Katherine.

They had met at an audition for Dawson’s Creek and just weeks later they were wed during a 2am ceremony in Las Vegas.

Before finding out the bombshell news, Lara recalled how Charlie was ‘quite rude’ while they were working together on set.

She then explained to The Sun: ‘Anthony and I decided we wouldn’t put up with this. We went to the hotel he was staying at to get some answers. We asked reception to call him down.

‘When he came down he was tense, it was weird and bizarre. Then this gorgeous American came down the stairs, she looked so pretty and was a cool girl.

‘I was wearing a weird outfit, like something you’d go to a festival in the 90s in. I remember throwing back my drink and Anthony’s, I knew something bad was going to happen.’

After coming face-to-face with his wife, Lara fled the hotel and even the UK, booking a flight to Japan to get as far away from the situation.

However, she was plagued with adverts of Charlie promoting his new film.

‘It’s really hard when you have broken up with someone famous, because they are everywhere and you can’t escape them,’ Lara said.

Daily Mail has approached Charlie’s representatives. 

While she kept in touch with Charlie at times over the years, the star is now dating her childhood sweetheart Steven Swaisland, 54.

She added how she holds no ill feelings towards Sons of Anarchy star Charlie, now 45, who has been with his longtime girlfriend Morgana McNelis since 2005.

Lara said: ‘I was very hurt but at the time he made me feel so good when we were together, like the most important person in the world.’  

Back in 2020, Hunnam explained he feels ‘indifferent’ to the institution of marriage after tying the knot to actress, Katharine Towne.

The former couple wed in Las Vegas after a whirlwind three weeks of dating in 1999, before divorcing in 2002. 

When asked if he had any future plans to walk down the aisle again on Andy Cohen’s SiriusXM radio show, Hunnam said he would begrudgingly get hitched again. 

‘I’ll do it because it’s important to her but I don’t have any great romantic feelings towards it,’ he said of marrying McNelis. 

He quickly retracted the comments just a few weeks later as he explained to TooFab that his remarks were ‘a stupid thing to say.’ 

‘That really hurt my girlfriend’s feelings and I really regretted saying that,’ the Queer as Folk actor admitted. ‘I actually didn’t mean it at all, it was, frankly, just stupid s**t I said in the heat of the moment.’