Killing Eve star Fiona Shaw makes rare appearance with professor wife at Wimbledon

While Fiona Shaw is notorious for maintaining a firm boundary between her public and private life, the Killing Eve actress stepped into the spotlight alongside her wife, Sonali Deraniyagala, for day two of the 2026 Wimbledon Championships on Tuesday.

The couple were seated in the royal box at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, joining the likes of Radio 1 DJs Greg James and Mollie King, as well as broadcaster Richard Osman and musician Jamie Cullum. 

The Enola Holmes star and her wife, who is a professor, were captured smiling and laughing during a conversation with Calendar Girls actress Celia Imrie.

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Who is Fiona Shaw’s wife?

Fiona, 67, is married to Sonali Deraniyagala, an author, memoirist and economist from Sri Lanka. 

A lecturer in Economics at the SOAS South Asia Institute, Sonali is perhaps best known for her 2013 memoir, Wave: A Memoir of Life After the Tsunami, which recounts the grief of losing her husband and sons in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in Indonesia. 

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Sonali and her family were on holiday when the natural disaster struck. The memoir details the economist’s account of the tragic event and the years of grief that followed. It became a national bestseller in North America and was named by the New York Times as one of the Top 10 Books of 2013.

Fiona and Sonali’s relationship 

Fiona and Sonali, who tied the knot in 2018, were first introduced by friends. 

Speaking about her relationship with the author, Fiona told Good Housekeeping in 2020: “I’m married to a very unusual person, but maybe it took a very unusual person to be willing to marry me.

“Sonali’s children, parents and husband were all killed in the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, and I’m very cognisant of that,” the Bad Sisters star explained. “Its sorrow doesn’t dominate our life, but it definitely defines it. I understand the value of things by being with Sonali.

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“She lives knowing that at any moment the world could end because she lost her world. It has brought me into land, I suppose, about lots of things; a lack of arbitrariness about life,” she added. 

Fiona previously told Saga magazine that it was “a good time” for her to get married. “Until then, I had given my life to tearing around the world working,” she explained. “I don’t think I could have married when I was in my twenties or thirties; I don’t think I was that person.

“I just made a decision when I was about 26 to give myself entirely to the whims of my work, and it was only about six years ago I began to get fed up with that,” she concluded. 

Fiona’s very private personal life

Fiona, who grew up in Cork, likes to keep her personal life out of the limelight. 

When probed about her sexuality during an interview with Vulture in 2012, Fiona said: “I wish I knew myself! I’m a very private person who comes from the provinces, who’s as surprised by the way my life is lived as anyone else.”

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She added: “But there’s nothing great to be said about it. I live very modestly.”

Meanwhile, during a 2020 interview with The Standard, Fiona revealed that her wife has little interest in her career, which means that her public and private life remain separate. 

“It means my domestic identity has become separated from my public identity,” she said.