Comedian James Acaster once told of how he “got dumped for Mr Bean” when his girlfriend left him for Rowan Atkinson.

Atkinson is renowned for his role as Mr Bean, but in 2011 announced that he intended to retire from the role, telling the BBC: “I don’t want him to particularly grow old.”

The comedy actor. who turned 69 on January 6, currently has a girlfriend who is 26 years younger than him who was previously in a relationship with comic James.

Opening up about how the actor stole his girlfriend, James said back in 2019 he was a |goddamn saint” for keeping it a secret for so long. He also revealed that he was constantly plagued with reminders of the split because of Rowan’s huge fame. He said: “Until you get left for Mr Bean, you don’t realise how frequently he pops up.”He continued: “There’s a shop two streets from my house that sells masks of his face. There’s nowhere where I’m going to go that he’s not there.” Actress Louise met Rowan in 2013 on the set of the West End play Quartermaine’s Terms. They starred in the play together and went public with their relationship in 2014, shortly after Rowan split from his wife of 23 years.James revealed that he found out that his girlfriend had left him for Rowan after reading it in the newspaper. Speaking about how his girlfriend dumped him during a comedy sketch, James joked: “I got left for Mr Bean. I found out a year after we split up. I opened the newspaper and there was a full-page story. No one else in the history of time has ever been left for Mr Bean.”