Amanda Abbington has found love again.

Amanda Abbington

Amanda Abbington

The 44-year-old actress split from her 'Sherlock' co-star Martin Freeman two years ago after 16 years together but she has since moved on and is now dating Northern Irish actor Jonjo O'Neill, 40.

Speaking before Jonjo performed at the Harold Pinter birthday gala in the West End last week, Amanda told the Daily Mail: "My boyfriend Jonjo is in the show. I'm so excited to see him perform. We both love Pinter."

And Amanda revealed that her new love has changed her life in many ways.

She said: "I was vegetarian for three years and then I met my boyfriend and became a meat-eater again."

Amanda previously hinted at a new love but admitted she was reluctant to name him.

She said: "He's lovely, we're keeping it very much on the low down. We don't want lots of people to know. We've been together for about a year now. He's an actor and he's delightful. He's very mindful of my situation and I'm very mindful of his."

And she admitted that she and Martin, with whom she has two children, kept their split a secret while they worked on 'Sherlock' together.

She said: didn't say anything for six months whilst they worked on the show together.

She said: "When we broke up nobody knew, we didn't tell anybody except for a few key people because they had to know, because of the logistics of hotels and stuff. It took six months for it to get out and a lot of that was while we were working on 'Sherlock'. We were not children, we weren't going to start throwing c**p at each other. We were professional and we were going to get on and make a show and be civil to each other. That's far more important than being angry and being sad ... We still get on really well, we still really both admire each other as actors ... he's a great guy, but we just couldn't live with each other any more."

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