Cradling her beloved pup Patti in the backseat of a taxi, Miranda Hart smiles as she shows off her gold wedding band.
On the way home from her appearance on The One Show, during which she confirmed that she had secretly married a surveyor, she told her Instagram followers: 'Hello, I'm coming back with my little Patti sleeping on my lap.
'I just wanted to say thank you so much for the beautiful messages. I have my best friend to spend time with and that's wonderful.
She then greeted her new husband, who was sitting next to her but out of view of the camera. All we saw of the new Mr. Hart was his left hand.
Naturally, the world was concerned about the identity of the guy who finally turned a star into an honest woman, who became more and more like her chronically single TV alter ego, who had so many well-documented romantic struggles over the years.
And yesterday photographs emerged for the first time of the man thought to be her new husband. The couple were seen on bikes rented from Lime, cycling along the River Thames towpath by Hammersmith Bridge, just a stone's throw from their home. However, the star's agent would neither confirm nor deny whether he was indeed the new Mr. Hart.
Miranda Hart on The One Show proudly displays her wedding ring
Could this be the mysterious man who stole Miranda's heart in real life?
It seems that despite breaking the news of his wedding to millions of viewers via the BBC's flagship magazine show, the beloved comedian is content to leave it in the shadows, at least for now.
But by early evening, Miranda was visibly over the moon. 'It's the best!' she said. 'He's my best friend, we have so much fun… The fact that I can meet someone – it's not a romantic comedy story, but it's hope, and that's why, I think, whatever situation you're in, There is always hope that things really change.
I'm told her new husband was backstage at The One Show during her appearance, and although he wasn't seen on camera Tuesday night, he appears in her new book, an autobiography titled I Haven't Been Totally honest with you, that was released today.
In it, she tells the touching story of how they met. The couple first saw each other during lockdown when he turned up to sort out a mold problem at her hen party in Hammersmith, west London, and they married in secret earlier this year.
“He is my husband,” she writes in her autobiography.
'I met my best friend and the love of my life who brings me more silliness, laughter, joy, support, affection and security than I thought possible in one person as I lost my house to mold and he was the building surveyor in the house remediation project.'
Her mystery man, who she describes as 'handsome' with gray hair and fine features, proposed while they were strolling in Kew Gardens – three miles from her £3million home.
She says his kneeling caused her to 'start crying because… Hello?! He was asking me to marry him.
In another clue to his identity, Miranda says he is from the southwest of England, describing him as a “Bristol boy”, and adds that “he has a dog”.
A former colleague of Miranda, 51, says it represents a 'dream' scenario for Miranda: 'Her dog Patti is Miranda's life, she loves dogs and loves people who love dogs.'
Clues about his new romantic status have been in plain sight for a few years now. In December 2022, Miranda spent her 50th birthday with her new boyfriend in a luxurious lakeside cabin situated in the village of Ditchling in Sussex.
She wrote on Instagram: “Ten years ago, at my 40th birthday party, a friend jokingly said to me, “So what are you going to do for 50?”
'I replied, without joking, 'My dream is to be in a snow-covered log cabin with someone I love.' I don't know why I had this dream at 50, before 40 started – but it came true this week.
Miranda chases her on-screen crush, Gary (below, played by Tom Ellis) after he accidentally catches her trying on a wedding dress in his eponymous TV series
On her TV show, Hart plays a woman whose love life is full of misunderstandings and social missteps.
'Dreams can come true. Many of mine do.
However, there were no details of Miranda's new boyfriend, nor any photos. Instead, she restricted herself to photos of her idyllic snowy views and one of her reclining on a lounger.
Miranda first found fame in 2009 when she was catapulted into the spotlight by the huge success of her comedy of the same name, which follows her quest to find 'the perfect man' and her on-and-off relationship with chef Gary Preston, played by the actor handsome. Tom Ellis.
Unfortunately, at the time it seemed to have been the closest Miranda got to romance.
So it's perhaps unsurprising that friends of the star, who also had a three-year stint as Camilla 'Chummy' Fortescue-Cholmondeley-Browne in BBC drama series Call The Midwife, were shocked when she told them about her new man .
“Whenever I told any of my friends that I had met someone, they would all just stop, confused, and say, “How?”,” she recalls in her new book.
'Not a high probability… stuck at home [with] illness and [during] a global pandemic, for a knight in shining armor to show up at the door, but he did.
After the mold visit, Miranda and her Bristol Boy chatted a few times on the phone before he returned for a “socially distanced” meeting in his living room.
Admitting that it was her first romantic date in a long time, Miranda writes: “The date therefore consisted of a cup of tea in my living room, with some social distancing in place, passing cookies to each other with arms outstretched.”
They took a trip to Dorset, where they stayed in a cottage and enjoyed walks in the park with their dogs and pottery dates.
She writes: 'He didn't give a damn (her words) what I did
to live. In fact, whenever we talked about my work, we laughed about how he hadn't seen it.
'If a program came on with me, he would quickly turn it off, as he didn't want to meet the person on TV.
“It was such a gift to have someone tell me it was the real me they wanted to get to know, and to be praised for aspects of myself that I might have forgotten.”
Despite taking a break because they weren't ready to become an 'us' – leaving Miranda heartbroken – the pair reunited soon after.
'Our time apart has shown us that we truly have fallen madly in love with each other. The boy became my boyfriend and I never thought I could meet someone who could so genuinely be perfect for me in every way.
Fans of the actress will be delighted to know that she has finally found love, because during Miranda's rise to fame, she was hounded for years by questions about her real-life love life.
It was a subject the comedian had remained silent on – until now.
After arriving on the showbiz scene with such enthusiasm 15 years ago, Miranda became an almost instant national treasure. Part of what made her so endearing was that she seemed like an antidote to celebrity.
Hart as single Miss Bates in the 2020 film version of Jane Austen's novel Emma
Born in Torquay in December 1972, Miranda Katherine Hart Dyke is the daughter of Captain David Hart Dyke, a Royal Navy officer and member of the
the aristocratic family Hart Dyke and Diana Margaret Luce. Miranda's father was commander of HMS Coventry when it was sunk during the Falklands conflict in 1982 by an Argentine fighter and was badly burned escaping the stricken warship.
She grew up in Petersfield, Hampshire, and was educated privately at Downe House, a girls' boarding school near Thatcham, Berkshire. There she became friends with now TV sports presenter Clare Balding, who was head girl.
Next stop was the University of the West of England in Bristol, where Miranda graduated with a 2:1 in political science.
She then completed a postgraduate course in acting at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts (ALRA) in south-west London.
Then in 2002 she played a one-woman show in Edinburgh and two years later presented a sitcom for the BBC. At her reading to BBC executives, writer and Absolutely Fabulous star Jennifer Saunders was present.
The rest, as they say, is history. But Miranda's success masked personal pain. She once described how she spent a difficult few years “stuck at home with a chronic fatigue-based illness” that took “a long time” to diagnose.
She added: “Which, unfortunately, I know a lot of people will know – you miss life so much. So I'm thrilled to be sitting here. Miranda says her problems began in her mid-teens: “Probably when I was 14 or 15, I got a tick-borne disease… and that's when my symptoms started,” she said.
Ticks are small spider-like creatures that are found in moorland and woodland areas across the UK. Not everyone who is bitten by a tick will become infected, as only a small proportion of them carry the bacteria that causes a disease known as Lyme disease.
In fact, a tick bite can only cause the disease in humans if the tick involved has already bitten an infected animal.
Miranda's condition was not properly diagnosed until some time after she reached adulthood. “It was a huge relief,” she recalled. 'I mean, being misunderstood and misjudged is one of the hardest things in these kinds of conditions. Of course.'
Now she has finally found happiness in her personal life. On the last page of her book she writes: 'Finally there are two men [or perhaps she meant just the one] without whom this book would not exist.
'The boy, or the husband, who patiently and gently listened not only to the sections of the book, but also to the groans of the process and the worries of not completing it.
'And made me countless meals and snacks along the way to keep me active. Husband, you are truly the greatest gift to my life.
