Model-turned-activist Sabrina Dhowre is Idris Elba‘s third wife after two failed marriages, Who are his ex-wives and who else has he dated?
Nowadays, Idris Elba is everywhere: starring in the Apple TV+ series Hijack, The Suicide Squad, and The Harder They Fall. He also filmed another installment of his Luther series and served as the voice to Knuckles in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. In addition to tending to his on-screen duties, Idris and his wife, Sabrina Dhowre Elba, hosted two seasons of their podcast, Coupledom.
Oh, and did we mention they launched a melanin-inclusive skincare brand called S’Able Labs?
Needless to say, Idris and his wife are couple goals! To further emphasis Sabrina’s accomplishments, we must point out that the Vancouver native is also a model and activist. She has appeared in British Vogue, Elle, InStyle, and other magazines, Cosmopolitan reports. And as an activist, she became a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations’ International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) alongside Idris.
So, how did these two love birds meet? We’ve got all the details on his wife and their relationship!
How did Idris Elba meet his wife, Sabrina?
In a July 2021 interview on the Just the Sip podcast, Sabrina revealed she met Idris at a jazz party — and that one of her girlfriends was the one who had her eye on the actor! So, Sabrina got the two talking and then took her leave, but the friend later reported that Idris wouldn’t stop talking about Sabrina. “I’m like, ‘Nope, excuse me, that’s wrong,’” Sabrina recalled on the podcast. “I’m trying to be a good friend!”
Of course, she eventually relented. “We had the best conversation,” she said. “We talked all night, all the next day, and we were, like, inseparable after that.”
“Me and Idris just get along so well,” Sabrina said on the podcast. “Our values are connected, we have the same interests, we have the same comedy sense. Just so many things aligned.”
Idris Elba and his wife got engaged in 2018 and married the following year.
Idris popped the question to Sabrina at a February 2018 screening of his film Yardie at London’s Rio Cinema, as the audience cheered on the couple.
And in April 2019, Sabrina and Idris tied the knot in Marrakech, Morocco.
“Words can’t describe what I felt in this moment,” Sabrina wrote on Instagram on their one-year wedding anniversary, as she shared a video from the big day. “Walking down the aisle and seeing the man of my dreams, my best friend, standing in front of me ready to make a bond that lasts forever.”
Sabrina and Idris enjoyed a safari honeymoon in Tanzania.
According to The Guardian, the couple traveled to East Africa for their honeymoon, and they were eager to return to the continent as their lives progressed. “Idris and I always talk about retiring to Africa; we want to have kids in Africa, we’re both Africans, and we both would love to live there,” Sabrina shared with the newspaper in 2020.
And their love for Africa — as well as some prodding from Sabrina’s Somali mother — led to their IFAD roles. “Both me and Idris wanted to be on the ground and wanted to feel we were making an impact, however small, and where I feel I can make most of a difference is talking to people,” Sabrina added. “I truly believe the continent of Africa and its future is in all our interests.”
Before Sabrina, Elba married two other women and shares his two children with his ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend.
Sabrina is Elba’s third wife as he had been married twice before he met her.
Idris is the proud father of two kids — his daughter Isan, and son Winston, both of which were born out of previous relationships. Idris shares Isan with his ex (and first) wife Kim Norgaard (whom he married from 1999 to 2003), and Winston with his former girlfriend, Naiyana Garth.
His second wife was Sonya Nicole Hamlin and they married in 2006 but divorced in 2006. Sonya is an American lawyer. and second wife of the English actor. The pair got married in 2006, but their union failed after only a few weeks. Hamlin thought of Elba as her true love, despite their brief union.
In June 2023, Sabrina attended a friend’s baby shower, sharing a moment from the celebration via Instagram. Perhaps one day soon she will be able to bask in that same excitement.
Considering Sabrina was born on July 16, 1989, she still has plenty of time to decide if she wants to expand her family.