Idrissa Akuna Elba OBE, aka Idris Elba, is a British actor, producer, musician and father of two children who rose to fame thanks to a series of well-received projects through the ’00s. The television heartthrob is a hit with the ladies, and throughout his career the interest in his personal life has always been as intense as the interest in his work. He made his US breakthrough with The Wire in 2002 and has been on a nonstop train to success ever since.
Despite being a wildly desired man, Idris actually came into his breakthrough as a married one as well. His first wife, Hanne “Kim” Nørgaard, was with him from 1999 to 2003. Kim is a make-up artist and cosmetologist born in Korea. She is a professional in her field and has worked with the likes of Robin Williams, Geena Davis, and Shaquille O’Neal, according to her LinkedIn. She and Idris shared one child, daughter Isan Elba. Isan is now 20 years old and has followed her father into Hollywood, appearing in the film Crimson Ties.
Isan was recently very upset at her father after he opted not to cast her in the film Beast. While he did allow her to audition, in the end, they just did not have the right on-screen chemistry for the film’s father-daughter duo. “She auditioned, and it came down to chemistry in the end. She’s great, but the relationship in the film and the relationship between my daughter was, the chemistry wasn’t right for the film, weirdly enough.”
In the years following his split from Isan’s mom in 2003, Idris would eventually date a woman named Naiyana Garth. They had a son named Winston. Idris relocated back to London to be near Naiyana and Winston for some time until the pair split. While he is no longer with her, he’s enjoyed co-parenting and has frequently talked about Winston’s taste in music and love of Venice Beach. “He tends to take over the playlist when we’re together. He has a particular type of music he likes. His mum introduced him to 1980s music. He loves house music. My son’s into it. He makes music on the iPad. Anything electronic gets him going. I’m excited by the prospect of him producing music.”
Idris loves being a father to Winston, his only son, but in 2010 he thought he had another boy on the way. While promoting a film at the time he talked excitedly about expecting a boy soon and even mentioned the child’s name on red carpets. Unfortunately, he later revealed that the boy was not his and the woman he was dating at the time had lied to him. He opened up about this incident with GQ Magazine in 2013.
The actor explained that he’d been dating a woman in Florida for several years who became pregnant. When the boy arrived, he looked nothing like Idris, and the actor became suspicious. “It wasn’t immediately obvious, well, it was, because he didn’t look like me,” Elba says. “But it wasn’t immediately obvious what had gone down,” Idris says it was all a blow to the face, but eventually, he got back up and chalked the ordeal up to karma. It took the actor many years to discuss the event as it weighed heavy on him. However, Idris Elba understood he also had not been an angel in life, so believed what goes around comes around.
