Michelle Dockery on Her Loss: 'I Refer to Myself as a Widow'

"Downton Abbey's" Michelle Dockery, who lost her fiancé John Dineen in 2015, revealed in a new interview she considers herself a widow.

Dockery, who is set to appear in an adaptation of the acclaimed 1976 film "Network" in London, lost Dineen, to whom she'd been engaged for a year, to cancer.

She told The Guardian of his death, "I don't have the vocabulary to describe what it felt like. And what it still feels like." Becoming emotional, she she went on to say, "I've never been more committed to anything in my life than to him. So at the time everything just shut down. Work, everything. Work didn't matter. You suddenly become an [oncological] expert. This stuff becomes your world, and that of course was my priority."

Admitting she "never lost hope," even when Dineen, an Irish PR director, was told his condition was terminal, Dockery said, "Oh, I refer to myself as a widow, yes. We were engaged, and married at heart, and so I do consider myself a widow." She noted the loss made her relate even more strongly to her "Downton Abbey" character, also a widow. "That's the first time I've said that, and it's a bit of a relief to say so."