‘I do consider myself a widow’ – Michelle Dockery speaks out about her Irish partner’s tragic death

Downton Abbey actress Michelle Dockery lost her fiancé in 2015

The actress was engaged to the 34-year-old Irishman, who died from a form of cancer in 2015.

Michelle said she does feel like a widow following John's untimely passing.

She explained in a previous interview with The Guardian, "We were engaged, and married at heart, and so I do consider myself a widow."

"I don’t have the vocabulary to describe what it felt like. And what it still feels like," she said when bravely discussing John's passing.

"I’ve never been more committed to anything in my life than to him. At the time, everything just shut down. Work, everything. Work didn’t matter."

John's cancer diagnosis was terminal, but Michelle said she never lost hope, no matter how awful things were.

"I never lost hope. No. I’m not exaggerating when I say that John did not complain once, never, not once, and that gave us strength."

She said that hope is one of the only things that keeps you going through the unthinkable.

"It’s what keeps you going, that positivity – to never lose that hope for a miracle. I couldn’t have done it any other way.'

"John was a very private person, and the hardest thing was keeping it out of the press when he was sick. It took a lot," the actress added.

The actress found love many years after John's heartbreaking passing. She is now married to Jasper Waller-Bridge.

The couple confirmed they were expecting their first child together at the Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale premiere in Leicester Square, London.