Rik Mayall had quite the love life that included a fling with an actress from Bottom

Comedy fans in the UK would certainly be remiss if they weren’t at least familiar with the works of the late Rik Mayall. The Harlow, England native had a successful career in comedy spanning over 30 years. It was such a tragedy when he passed away suddenly in 2014; he suffered a heart attack after a morning run. He is survived by his widow Barbara Robbin and his three children.

Mayall came up in the early 1980s with stand-up performances alongside Ade Edmondson, who went on to be his frequent collaborator for years. Throughout his career, he created and starred in successful shows like Bottom and The Young Ones, and appeared in memorable films such as Drop Dead Fred and Eat the Rich. He is now widely remembered as one of the best English stand-up comedians.

But what many fans of Mayall might not be as familiar with is his personal life. The funnyman went through a cheating scandal before marrying and settling down with Barbara Robbin.

Inside Rik Mayall’s romances

After meeting actress Lise Mayer in Manchester University, Mayall and Edmondson worked with her on the BBC series The Young Ones (1982-1984). At the time of the show, Mayer and Mayall were in a relationship, but that was interrupted when Mayall chose to have a secret five-year affair with Robbin, who he met on the set of A Kick Up the Eighties (1981).

As told in an archived interview with Mayall, the actor recalled leaving Mayer while she was pregnant to go elope with Robbin, who was also pregnant at the time. He told The Birmingham Post:

"“I don’t feel at all guilty. I had to follow my heart. I was living with Lise but I was in love with Barbara. We carried on the affair in secret for five years, until Barbara became pregnant. I found out while shopping in the January sales with Lise and Ben Elton, who’d written The Young Ones together. We were in the posh store Peter Jones and I phoned her up. Barbara told me she was pregnant and I said: ‘I’ll be on the next train’. I told Lise and Ben that I wasn’t feeling very well and that I was going home. I just said ‘Bye’ to Lise and didn’t tell her I was leaving her. I jumped in a cab, packed a case and my passport and got on a train to Glasgow. Barbara came running down the platform to meet me – I’m choking up when I think of it now. Then we flew out to Barbados and got married.”"

Mayer sadly suffered a miscarriage while Mayall and Robbin went on to have three children together. Years later, Mayer started a relationship with comedian Angus Deayton and though they split in 2015, they share a son together.

More recently in just Dec. 2021, the revelation came out that actress Helen Lederer also had a romantic relationship with Mayall back in the 1980s. The two worked together on the series The Young Ones, Happy Families, and Bottoms. According to the Daily Mail, Lederer explained that they had a fling back in the day, recalling:

"“I’d already connected with Rik before, off screen, from Edinburgh so I knew him in that way, so it was a case of just being professional. I didn’t think, ‘Oh, lucky me, I’ve got a sex scene,’ because I’d already had that.”"

It can be tough to follow what really goes on in celebrities’ personal lives, especially before social media! Who knew funnyman Rik Mayall had so much going on romantically?