Keira Knightley 'Trained' Husband James Righton to Ditch His 'Very Bizarre' Food Preferences: 'All He Ate Was Cheese on Toast'

Keira Knightley whipped husband James Righton into shape during their early years together.

On the December 17 episode of the “Dish Podcast,” the actress, 40, exposed her man’s strange food preferences and how she helped him develop a taste for the finer things.

When the duo first started dating, the musician, 42, “just couldn’t cook.”

“All he ate was cheese on toast,” Knightley admitted. “I was like, ‘This is not good enough. This is not going to work.’ He wouldn’t even go out for dinner. He didn’t understand going to restaurants. He was very bizarre.”

Eventually, she encouraged her now-husband to develop a more mature palette.

“My oldest friend, who’s called Charlie, who’s a proper old school bon viveur, we basically trained him,” the Love Actually star explained. “We took him out to restaurants and he wouldn’t try anything. He was like a child. He used to shut his eyes and we’d be like, ‘Try it! Try it!’ And he’d be like, ‘Yeah, OK, it’s nice, it’s nice.’”

Righton, who cooked this year’s Christmas dinner for their family, now loves to spend time in the kitchen.

“We created a monster,” Knightley confirmed. “He’s obsessed…he loves, loves, loves it. I used to cook and used to really enjoy it, but can’t say I was ever very good at it. I get very distracted. I’ll have a chat right at the moment that everything’s ready and everything burns. Whereas he’s got one of those brains that is … he loves it, he’s methodical, he does it all. It just got to the point where it was always just disappointing when I cooked, and it was always really good when he cooked.”

The couple has been married since 2013 and share two daughters, Edie, 10, and Delilah, 6.

During an August 2024 podcast appearance, the Pride & Prejudice alum explained another one of the rocker’s food preferences from when they first started dating in 2011.

"I knew that it was serious when he very seriously turned around to me and said, 'You know, if you want to keep mayonnaise in the fridge, you can,'" Knightley recalled. "And I was like, wow."

"You knew I was the one," Righton noted.

The movie star also remembered meeting her man shortly after her agent dreamed it would happen.

“My agent said to me, 'I've had this dream – I was single – I've had a dream that you're meeting your future husband this week,' and I was like, 'That's exciting,'" she recalled. "So I got invited out to loads of things and I have to say I'd met a load of people that week and I was like, this isn't happening."

At an Academy Awards viewing party, “James grabbed a seat and said, 'Hello, I'm your future husband,' and there he is. And we basically ate and drank until we got married. Well, drank until I got pregnant.”