Dominic West Stands By Ruth Wilson Years After She Said She Needed To “Protect” Herself On ‘The Affair’: “Everything Ruth Has Said Is Absolutely Right”

Dominic West is standing by his former co-star Ruth Wilson. Years after the actress claimed she quit their Showtime series The Affair to “protect” herself, West revealed that everything she said was “absolutely right.”

West, who has since starred in The Crown, appeared in five seasons of The Affair from 2014 to 2019. He portrayed an American writer who had an affair with a younger woman, played by Wilson, who was written off the series after Season 4.

In a 2020 interview, Wilson said there was a situation on set that “didn’t feel right,” prompting her to “protect” herself by leaving the show, per The Hollywood Reporter.

“It was before #MeToo and before Harvey Weinstein — and yet my instincts were very clear and strong about what I felt was wrong, about what was going on, and what I didn’t feel safe about,” she said at the time. It has been speculated that Wilson was forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

West, for his part, was initially hesitant to talk about his co-star’s sudden exit from The Affair, according to his new interview with the Sunday Times.

“We talked a lot about it and I suppose I did experience it,” he told the outlet. “I don’t really like talking about it but … yeah, everything Ruth has said is absolutely right.”

Wilson reportedly left the show due to the number of sex scenes she had to film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. She later opened up about her “desperately awkward” sex scenes with West.

“Dom and I had to do so many sex scenes and I decided at one point I wasn’t going to show my nipples anymore,” she told the Sunday Times in 2022, adding that filming those types of scenes has changed now that intimacy coordinators are being utilized. “But before nothing would be said. It would be about making it up as you go along.”

She continued, “No one wanted to discuss [sex scenes], so the actors were invariably left to create something on the day and that’s desperately awkward. It’s a horrible place to be.”

According to the star, her intimate scenes with West were starting to feel “exploitative.”

“If something doesn’t feel authentic, in the context of something like a sex scene, it can start to feel exploitative. And that was happening on The Affair a bit,” she said. “Now I’m working as a producer [and] we have the space where if you’re feeling a bit uncomfortable we can talk about that.”