The Tragic Truth About Kate Beckinsale's Life

People all around the world had a front-row seat to the stunning transformation of Kate Beckinsale. The prominent leading lady had acting in her blood thanks to her parents, beloved British performers Richard Beckinsale and Judy Loe. Despite her fame at such a young age, Beckinsale has experienced quite a difficult journey and has faced her fair share of tragedy throughout her life. Her famous father died at just 31 years old, when she was 5, causing her unfathomable trauma and completely altering her world.

Though she is now a Hollywood star celebrated for winning performances in films like "Pearl Harbor," "Underworld," and "Serendipity," Beckinsale has nonetheless been the subject of relentless tabloid fodder and has dealt with many heartaches and hurdles. Whether she's plagued by plastic surgery rumors or pushing back against society's double standards, the actor is a force to be reckoned with and refuses to back down to haters.

Even Beckinsale's most devoted fans may not realize just how much she's been through in life and how resilient she truly is. And despite all the fame and success the movie star has earned throughout her impressive career, she has still had to overcome some unfortunate experiences.

Kate Beckinsale was born in Isleworth, London, on July 26, 1973, to actor parents Richard Beckinsale and Judy Loe. Her father was a popular comedic performer known for his roles in sitcoms like "Porridge," "Going Straight," and "Rising Damp." Richard became a celebrated British star, though behind closed doors he struggled with chronic dizzy spells and blackouts. Despite receiving a full medical examination just months prior, Richard died in March 1979 from a heart attack as a result of coronary artery disease at just 31 years old.

His unexpected passing caused profound trauma for Kate and led to personal struggles as a teenager. This is unsurprising considering she was only 5 when he passed away. "It stayed with me, the incredible shock and huge loss," she told People. "I started expecting bad things to happen, that friends will leave, that loved ones will die. It kept building until I had a nervous breakdown when I was a teenager." Loe began a relationship with director Roy Battersby when Kate was 9. And though Kate and her stepfather formed a close bond, she never stopped grieving the loss of her father.

"Anybody who's lost anybody knows that while it does get less painful, in that immediate way, it can still catch you 20 years later," Kate told The Independent in a 1997 interview, revealing that she spent much of her childhood watching reruns of his sitcoms. "I have seen [Richard] more on television than I have in life but there are certainly enough memories for me not to feel that it's somebody I didn't know."

The loss of a parent can feel truly unfathomable, and when Kate Beckinsale was 15, she developed anorexia and weighed just 5 stone (70 pounds) after struggling with the loss of her father and its impact on her family. Beckinsale subsequently had a nervous breakdown and spent four intensive years undergoing Freudian psychoanalysis to work through her personal trauma, having been in other therapy since she was 11.

During this period, she attended five sessions a week to combat her eating disorder. "It opened my eyes to things, not to be afraid of facing these fears," she told People (via Fame10) of the intense experience. "I at least understood what they were and where they had come from." Beckinsale credited her supportive mother and family with helping her overcome the health hurdle and ultimately recovered from the disorder.

Beckinsale further reflected on her eating disorder in her 1997 interview with The Independent. "I think there were all kinds of different reasons. Although I know not everybody who gets anorexia has a parent that's died, if you learn as a kid that seemingly fairly healthy people drop dead at 31 it sets you up in a fairly crap way. And there's a certain amount of guilt that flies around," she expressed. "Had I been older when I had a breakdown I think I would have been an alcoholic."

After graduating from Godolphin and Latymer School, Kate Beckinsale attended New College at Oxford, where she studied Russian and French literature and participated in the Oxford University Dramatic Society. She spent a year studying abroad in Paris and landed her first acting role as Hero in Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film adaptation of "Much Ado About Nothing," finding juggling her acting career and academics difficult. "It was getting to the point where I wasn't enjoying either thing enough because both were very high-pressure," she reflected to the Daily Mail in 2021.

Though Beckinsale had struggled to manage her conflicting passions and commitments, a more somber reason led the actor to drop out of college. In the same interview, she revealed that while attending Oxford, she had caught mono and took a break to recuperate at home. "While I was home, one of my dear friends there ended up jumping out of a window and dying. All my other friends were rusticated — basically expelled for a year and then you come back."

Beckinsale's friend was 21-year-old Henry Skelton, who tragically died in 1992 when he fell from a second-story room after consuming alcohol and LSD at a party. "When I was considering going back, nobody was there and there was this horrible whiff of death everywhere. That was the reason I didn't go back." 

Welsh actor Michael Sheen and American director Len Wiseman are arguably the most famous men Kate Beckinsale has ever dated, and she started dating Sheen in 1995 after they appeared in a theater production of "The Seagull." The couple welcomed their daughter Lily in 1999 but eventually called it quits in 2003 after Beckinsale completed production of "Underworld," a film helmed by Wiseman. The pair fell in love on set, but despite rumors, they remained adamant that there was no infidelity.

After her split from Sheen, Beckinsale sued the Daily Mail for publishing photos of her kissing Wiseman with her young daughter also in the images. She alleged that the publication invaded their privacy, and though she lost the lawsuit, the Daily Mail did issue a public apology to Beckinsale in August 2003. "We now understand that the claims we made were incorrect and we apologize to Kate for the distress and embarrassment she has been caused," the outlet wrote in a statement via The Guardian.

In 2012, Beckinsale spoke out about the timing of her relationship with Wiseman, whom she ultimately divorced in 2019. "The popular notion of how Michael and I broke up — that we were on [the first 'Underworld'] and I ran off with the director [Wiseman] — is just not true," she told Entertainment Weekly. "If that were the case, I think it would be very difficult and peculiar to have an okay situation."

Following her divorce from Len Wiseman in 2019, Kate Beckinsale found herself back on the dating scene and had short-lived romances with comedians Matt Rife and Pete Davidson, both of whom were significantly younger. The media criticized Beckinsale, and she passionately pushed back against double standards and the blatant ageism in Hollywood, calling out naysayers for their sexist response to her dating life.

"If everyone's sh***ing on you, it can make you feel kind of ugh for a minute ... [e]specially if there's really nothing wrong," Beckinsale told Women's Health of the internet uproar around her dating history. "If you're strangling a squirrel or hurting someone, I get it, but living one's life in a reasonably respectful manner shouldn't invite anyone to get too excited." She also pointed out the double standard women experience in society. "It can feel like a bit of a political act to be a woman over 32 who's having any fun at all."

Though she has had her fair share of romantic relationships (and dealt with the subsequent scrutiny that came with them), one surprising thing that Kate Beckinsale has never done is go out on a true date. "Do you know, I've really barely ever been on a date. I literally kind of meet someone, get to know them at work, and then either marry them or get pregnant by them," she joked to Extra in 2021.

After Chrissy Teigen bravely opened up about her miscarriage in 2020, Kate Beckinsale took to social media to support the model by sharing her own heartbreaking experience with losing a child and the emotional toll it takes. "There is grief, shame, and shock so often that come with an experience like this, plus the heartbreak of your body continuing, after the loss, to act as if it had a child to nurture," she wrote in a poignant Instagram post. "It can be the loneliest, most soul destroying period of time."

Beckinsale also revealed in the post that she had been 20 weeks pregnant when she lost the baby. She further detailed the harrowing incident when speaking out about the ongoing legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in 2024, revealing in a since-deleted Instagram video that she was forced to do a photo shoot by a publicist while still bleeding from the miscarriage the day before (via People).

"I said, 'I can't. I'm bleeding. I don't want to go and change my clothes in front of people I don't know and do a photo shoot. I'm bleeding out a miscarriage,'" Beckinsale said. "She was like, 'You'll have to, or you'll be sued.'" The actor went on to become an ambassador for the global support group Mariposa International after coming forward with her story in 2020.  

It may be surprising to realize that Kate Beckinsale's daughter, Lily Mo Sheen, is all grown up and gorgeous just like her famous mother, and the two have shared a special bond since her birth in 1999. Sheen largely grew up in the spotlight and has remained close with Beckinsale even after her split from Michael Sheen in 2003, and the exes have stayed close friends as co-parents. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the actor revealed that, like so many other people separated from their loved ones, she was unable to see her daughter for two years.

Beckinsale was busy working on a project while Sheen was studying at New York University during the height of the pandemic's travel restrictions, which kept them apart. "I haven't seen my daughter for two years because of everything," the actor revealed during an interview on "Live With Kelly and Ryan" in 2021. "Also, then I went to Canada working and so she couldn't come see me. ... [T]wo years of not seeing your child, to me, is the most preposterous thought."

The two relied on video chats with one another as a way to cope with their lengthy separation. "Thank God for FaceTime and all that ... but we're both panicking that we'll look really old to each other," Beckinsale joked to the hosts. Shortly after her appearance on the talk show, the leading lady finally reunited with her daughter Lily in July 2021, ending their long separation.

Following the death of her stepfather Roy Battersby in 2024, Kate Beckinsale was in the hospital for six weeks and struggled further after learning about her mother's cancer diagnosis. After posting a now-deleted Instagram video on July 8, 2024, of her wearing a pink crop top and sky-high boots, Beckinsale was subjected to negative comments about her looks and body. She was accused of going under the knife, prompting the actor to fire back over the scrutiny and reveal the true reason for her hospitalization.

"No, actually, I watched my stepfather die quite shockingly, my mother has stage 4 cancer, and I lost a lot of weight from stress and grief, quite quickly," she responded (via "Today"). "And then I was in the hospital for six weeks because the grief had burned a hole in my esophagus, which made me vomit copious amounts of blood, and I found eating very hard." In January 2024, Beckinsale announced that Battersby had died after having a stroke. In July 2024, she shared that her mother Judy had been diagnosed with cancer.

Beckinsale has long been subjected to negative commentary about her body. The actor can't escape plastic surgery rumors, and the constant scrutiny has led her to call out the media. She subsequently called the relentless body shaming "such a tiresome and subtly vicious way to bully a person" in an Instagram post (via E! News).

After the tragicdeath of her husband Richard in 1979, Kate Beckinsale's mother Judy Loe began a relationship with director Roy Battersby, and as a child, the future star quickly developed a deep bond with him. "I couldn't have knitted a better one," she said of her stepfather in her 1997 interview with The Independent. "Roy knew I was a traumatized little person. He didn't expect this idyllic little girl in plaits who'd be nice to him. ... He's been so brilliant. He wasn't pushy, he let me come to him."

Battersby died on January 10, 2024, from a stroke, and Beckinsale was already dealing with her own health struggles when she suffered yet another devastating loss. Less than two years later, Beckinsale's mother died on July 15, 2025, from stage 4 cancer, and the actor paid tribute to her in a touching Instagram post. "I am paralysed. Jude was the compass of my life, the love of my life, my dearest friend. The vastness and huge heart of this tiny woman has touched so many people who love her dearly," she wrote.

"This has been my greatest fear since finding my dad dead at five and I am here. Oh my Mama ... I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I am so sorry." Beckinsale's father died from a heart attack in his sleep and Loe had not been home due to a surgery. The actor was sadly the one to find her beloved dad.

Kate Beckinsale was subjected to relentless scrutiny of her body as she coped with the death of her parents. The "Underworld" star has undeniably had her fair share of loss in her life, which is the heartbreaking reason why she feels so connected to Prince William and Prince Harry: They all experienced the death of a parent, completely shattering their worlds at young ages.

She broke down in tears over "cruel" body-shaming comments in a December 2025 Instagram video, expressing just how hard the loss of her mother has been on her and how it's affected her health. "I think watching, especially alone, the people that you love the most dearly suffer and have horrific and sometimes violent, awful deaths really makes you not hungry," she said in the powerful video.

Beckinsale expressed how lucky she was to have Judy Loe and Roy Battersby in her life while bluntly addressing "all the people who are inconvenienced by me being too thin or too anything or not what they expect me to be like," adding that she wished they could have had such loving parents. The actor previously opened up about beauty standards and her own looks, addressing society's expectations of women. "I think women are damned anyway. I don't just mean actresses. You're seen as attractive, you're not seen as attractive. You're seen as too young, you're too old. Where is the f***ing sweet spot for women?" she told The Independent in 2021.