Downton Abbey's Daisy Lewis dumps 'jealous narcissist' Steve Coogan after blazing row outside the Groucho Club

For a couple whose romance has been kept characteristically private, the end when it came was very public. Downton Abbey star Daisy Lewis and comedian Steve Coogan broke up after a dramatic and emotional late-night scene outside London’s Groucho Club on Thursday.

Witnesses said the Philomena and Alan Partridge star bundled the weeping actress into a cab on her own after their spat in the Soho venue spilled out on to the street.

Miss Lewis, 30, has refused to comment, although on Friday night she tweeted cryptically, ‘Things I can live without: weak cruel men...’

But friends have revealed how Coogan, 50, has struggled to cope as his girlfriend’s career has soared in recent months.

The fight, which was interrupted by a fan, came at 11.30pm, just over an hour after she’d come off stage at London’s trendiest theatre, Found111, where she is starring in Bug with War And Peace heart-throb James Norton. 

Her return to critically-acclaimed theatre, in addition to making her name as teacher Sarah Bunting in Downton has, according to one friend, shifted the power balance in her year-long relationship with Coogan: ‘Daisy was the sweetest girlfriend you could imagine.

‘It all seemed to be going fine until she suddenly became more of a star. Steve could not bear the thought that he was not the main attraction all the time.

‘He started chipping away at her confidence. He did not like the fact she was doing a play with James Norton. He was so unsupportive. As soon as Daisy was keeping her own schedule and doing well, he seemed to feel she was in the way of his limelight. Basically Steve Coogan is a full-blown, old-fashioned narcissist.’

It is understood that the couple, who met through friends last June, had a make-or-break trip to the Lake District last weekend. Coogan has a house there and Miss Lewis went to stay with him in the hope of reconciling their differences.

But once back in London, with Miss Lewis being feted for her performance in the cult comedy, Coogan had another ill-tempered outburst.

The friend said: ‘He was trying and trying to have the last word. He did not like the fact she was working – even less that the show is such a big hit. It was as if he did not want someone who’s a professional in her own right as a girlfriend, that he’d rather have someone at his beck and call.’

One eyewitness outside the Groucho revealed what happened next: ‘There was a bad vibe between them and it spilled out into the street. They were at each other – it was heated. Coogan was wearing a blue nylon bomber jacket and was smoking. Daisy looked pretty in a blue Sixties-style dress. First she had a face like thunder, then started crying, and that’s when he put her into a taxi and sent her off on her own.

‘People were aghast at seeing such an emotional confrontation. Halfway through, a fan came over and Coogan was really brusque with him, telling him they were having a private conversation, and putting out his hand to fend him off.

‘The worst part was he seemed so uncaring and cold towards Daisy. There was not a hint of kindness. He seemed more interested in himself.’

Steve Coogan, pictured here in Dublin with Daisy Lewis, celebrated his 50th birthday last year while she is 20 years his junior

In truth, Miss Lewis and Coogan were always an unlikely couple, separated by an age gap of more than 20 years.

Miss Lewis grew up in Dorset and attended Port Regis, the same prep school as the Queen’s grandchildren Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips. She went on to Bryanston before reading English literature at King’s College, London.

Coogan was born the fourth of six children to a working-class Catholic family in the Manchester suburb of Middleton.