Rowan Atkinson has divorced his wife of more than 24 years Sunetra Sastry in a court hearing that lasted less than a minute, after he left her for a comedy actress nearly half his age.

Atkinson, 60, has been estranged from Sunetra, a BBC make-up artist, since they split in 2014. The decree nisi was granted on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour at London’s Central Family Court by District Judge Stephen Alderson, and neither he nor his ex-wife – who lodged the petition - were present for the hearing.

Rowan AtkinsonAtkinson and his ex-wife Sunetra Sastry

He and Sunetra married in 1990 in New York City, and have two children together – Ben, 22, and Lily, 20. However, Atkinson has been dating comedy actress Louise Ford, 32, for nearly a year and half after they met on the set of the West End comic play Quartermaine’s Terms.

Ford has previously starred alongside ‘The Inbetweeners’ Joe Thomas and Simon Bird in Sky’s ‘Chickens’. Atkinson used to date comedienne Leslie Ash in the 1980s, before meeting Sunetra in the latter part of the decade and settling down.

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A source told The Sun earlier on Tuesday (November 10th): “Sunetra was deeply upset to be replaced by such a younger woman.”

Atkinson, who keeps his private life shielded from the media, is one of Britain’s wealthiest entertainment figures with a reported personal fortune of roughly £70 million. He made his name doing distinctive stand-up comedy and starring in the sketch show ‘Not the Nine O’Clock News’, before finding his most famous roles in ‘Mr. Bean’ and ‘Blackadder’.

He and his former wife were building an £11 million home in rural Oxfordshire at the time of their split roughly a year ago. He has moved into a £4 million London home, while Sunetra is living at a £21 million mansion in the capital.

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