One name change wasn’t enough for Kate Winslet’s husband.
On Thursday night, the “Ammonite” star appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, and the host brought up the unusual situation involving her husband Edward Abel Smith.
“So his birth name is Abel Smith,” Winslet said. “And as time went by and Ned became Ned—who is quite an original personality—he just decided at one point in his life to just change his name to Rocknroll. Ned Rocknroll. So when I met him, his name was Ned Rocknroll. This is completely true.”
The name change didn’t exactly sit well with a lot of people, and while apparently people in the U.S. were okay with it, Winslet said “Not so much” in England.
“When he changed his name to Rocknroll, I don’t think he had anticipated what might happen if he should have a girlfriend whose name was Kate Winslet and who was quite well known and therefore the press might kind of not react so well to the fact that she had this boyfriend called then Rocknroll,” she said. “So, it was a little tricky.”
Finally, it all got a bit too much to bear.
“I got to the point where I’m like, you know, I’m filling in doctors’ forms and it says ‘ mother’s name’ and ‘father’s name’, and I’m like, ‘Honey…are we going to keep going?'” Winslet said. “And he’s like, ‘Yeah, you’re right. I’ll just change it back.’ So, he changed it back.”
She added that Smith’s own father was “pleased” that his son changed his name back.
