Erin Doherty reveals big life change after Adolescence success that feels like a ‘natural’ next step

Erin Doherty has revealed that she’s embarked on a big life change following her continued career success in the hit show Adolescence. The actress has moved in with her girlfriend Sinead Donnelly, which she described as a “natural” next step. 

According to the Daily Mail, Erin, 33, has shared that she will be moving from West Sussex to London in order to spend more time with Sinead, 35, an NHS radiographer. She opened up about the move just as she was named best supporting actress at the Critics’ Choice Awards on Sunday for her role as forensic psychologist Briony Ariston in the Netflix series.

“As much as I loved getting on the trains and going to see her and spend days in London, I also wanted to wake up next to her. I’m such a romantic,” she is reported as saying. “People say it’s a cliche lesbian thing to move in straight away. But I just thought, ‘I really think I should move in’. I just love her.”

That Erin, who is best known for playing Princess Anne in The Crown, was off the market was first revealed in August. The Daily Mail reported that the star had shared a sweet image of the pair on social media captioned: “Take us back to Italy please…”

It comes after HELLO! reported last March that Erin had split with her long-term girlfriend Sophie Melville. She had told Elizabeth Day on her How To Fail podcast that their relationship had been one of her “proudest accomplishments”.

In 2022, Erin had also told Porter magazine that “she’s made me so healthy. I used to sit at home eating a bag of chocolates, and now we have, like, a kale salad”. The former couple met in 2017 when they starred alongside one another in Alan Ayckbourn’s The Divide.

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Also in her conversation on Day’s podcast, Erin reflected on realising she was gay, sharing that it was a “mind-blowing” relationship with a woman at the age of 25 that caused the penny to drop. “It took me a really, really long time to finally get to the point where I was like, ‘Oh, I’m gay’,” she said. 

“I never really was ready to carve out that path for myself, even though, looking back, I always knew that my relationships with men weren’t satisfying in that wholehearted way that I wanted them to be. I wouldn’t change it because it’s really made me adore that part and really cherish it.”