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Rowan Atkinson‘s daughter Lily Sastry has spoken out for the first time about her parents’ divorce, revealing their break-up plunged her into ‘darkness’ and ‘chaos’.
Mr Bean star Rowan, 70, separated from Lily’s mother, former BBC make-up artist Sunetra Sastry, in 2015 after 24 years of marriage.
Sunetra, 67, was granted a ‘quickie’ divorce on the grounds of his ‘unreasonable behaviour’, and he has been in a relationship with actress Louise Ford, 44, since.
Addressing her parents’ split, Lily, 30, said she went through a lot of ‘loneliness’ during her twenties as she discussed the struggles of navigating a ‘broken family’.
‘I went through so much chaos and loneliness in my twenties. Now I am 30, I can see clearly where I was at and what was happening inside me during the darkest days,’ Lily said in a new online post.
‘I was so lost, and only really started to feel vaguely normal in my late twenties. I have always been trapped between worlds; do not belong here, but also don’t belong there.’
Rowan Atkinson’s daughter Lily Sastry (pictured) has spoken out for the first time about her parents’ divorce, revealing their break-up plunged her into ‘darkness’ and ‘chaos’
Mr Bean star Rowan, 70, separated from Lily’s mother, former BBC make-up artist Sunetra Sastry (both pictured in October 2011), in 2015 after 24 years of marriage
Rowan Atkinson is seen here at an after-party for a screening of the film Johnny English Strikes Again in London in October 2018
In her early twenties, Lily tried her hand at burlesque dancing and then moved onto singing, which her father was reportedly backed financially.
She changed her surname from Atkinson to her mother’s, Sastry, in 2017, leading to whispers of a possible rift between Lily and the Blackadder star.
Lily, who lives in London, is now a professional artist, and had her debut exhibition at a small independent gallery in the capital last December.
‘It’s hard to find out who you are in the midst of no friends, a broken family, and no idea how to navigate making music and trying to understand the world,’ she continued.
‘It has taken me years to figure out my life and who I am, as well as become the best person I can be. I have made countless mistakes, and been hurt, lost, and alone many a time.’
She added: ‘Art was my guiding light. The thing that made all the suffering worth it; as I was working towards a goal, a dream.’
Rowan and Sunetra also have a son, Ben Atkinson, 31, who is an officer in the Royal Gurkha Regiment.
Rowan and his current partner Louise first met in 2013 after appearing together in the West End as he starred in the comic play Quartermaine’s Terms.
Addressing her parents’ split, Lily, 30, said she went through a lot of ‘loneliness’ during her twenties as she discussed the struggles of navigating a ‘broken family’ (all pictured in 2011)
Sunetra, 67, was granted a ‘quickie’ divorce on the grounds of Rowan’s ‘unreasonable behaviour’, and he has been in a relationship with Louise Ford (pictured in April 2015), 44, since
The actor Rowan Atkinson is pictured here with daughter Lily in London in June 2016
Lily Atkinson, seen here in a photo shared on her Instagram account, has now written about going through a lot of ‘loneliness’ during her twenties
The couple have kept their relationship relatively low-key and under wraps ever since and are rarely spotted out together.
Rowan and Sunetra were building an £11million home in Oxfordshire at the time of their split in 2014.
Following the split, Blackadder star moved into a £4million cottage in Hampstead, north London, while Sunetra resided in a £21million mansion in the capital, bought for her by Rowan in 2014.
After it was revealed in October 2017 that Lily had changed her social media profile surname, a spokesman for her said: ‘There is no truth in the idea that Rowan and Lily have fallen out.’
Sunetra worked for the BBC as a make-up artist, while Atkinson has starred in TV series including Blackadder, Mr Bean, Not The Nine O’Clock News and The Thin Blue Line.