Because of Sherlock and the first season of Fargo, I had a deep respect for Martin Freeman as an actor and a person. He’s SO talented, and I guess I thought that must make him a good person. It does not. Martin Freeman had a common-law marriage to Amanda Abbington for years. They were partners, but they never actually got married. They split in 2016 and they seem to loosely share custody of their two children, a son and daughter who are now 14 and 11 respectively. Well, Martin is promoting his new TV show where he plays an “angry father,” and long story short, he’s talking about how, sure, he “smacked” his kids a few times.

Actor Martin Freeman has admitted he smacked his son, 14, and daughter, 11, and called them ‘little f***ers’ when they were younger. The Hobbit actor, 48, said he’d smacked his children Joe and Grace twice and sworn at them more than twice. The father-of-two also conceded it was a rule at home with his former partner actress Amanda Abbington, 45, not to do either of the actions to the children ‘but you know, I’ve done both’.

‘I know I’m not supposed to do it, but there are so many images about how (parenting) all just has to be brilliant that it makes people feel bad,’ he said in a candid interview with The Sunday Times. ‘Because it’s not brilliant. I mean, it is – it’s the best thing I’ll do. But that doesn’t mean it’s not really hard. This idea you only ever rationalise with a toddler? Genuinely, good luck. If you could do that, God go with you. Amazing. I’m not proud I did that, but I have. I don’t think it’s a policy. And I’ll do it again!’

It is illegal to smack children under The Children Act 2004 unless it amounts to ‘reasonable punishment’. The NSPCC has called for a complete ban on smacking, saying that it only gives children a bad example on how to handle strong emotion, may encourage bullying, and could cause them to lie or hide feelings in order to avoid the punishment.

[From The Daily Mail]

The cursing thing… in general, cursing around kids doesn’t matter to me, but he makes it sound like he was calling his kids terrible names in front of them? Which isn’t great. But the smacking thing is awful. Like, he’s open-hand smacking his kids? What age were they? If you think it’s hard to rationalize with a toddler, why would you think that smacking them will be the thing that works? I hope to God he wasn’t smacking his toddlers. But honestly, there’s not a good age to smack a child, because it’s f–king ABUSE.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

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