Michael Sheen says Brexit contributed to his breakup with Sarah Silverman

'After the Brexit vote and Trump, we both felt in different ways we wanted to get more involved'

Michael Sheen has revealed how Brexit and the election of President Donald Trump sparked the end of his relationship with Sarah Silverman.

The 49-year-old actor and 47-year-old were together for four years before splitting up.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Sheen said: “After the Brexit vote, and the election where Trump became president, we both felt in different ways we wanted to get more involved.

“That led to her doing her show I Love You America and it led to me wanting to address the issues that I thought led some people to vote the way they did about Brexit”.

He added: “I felt a responsibility to do something, but it (meant) coming back (to Britain) – which was difficult for us, because we were very important to each other. But we both acknowledge that each of us had to do what we needed to do.”

Silverman previously announced the end of their relationship, saying they had “consciously uncoupled” - a phrase famously used by Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin to describe their split.

“The great Michael Sheen and I consciously uncoupled over Christmas,” she wrote on Twitter. “I mean, not ‘over Christmas’ – like that wasn’t the fight that ended it. No fight. We just live in different countries and it got hard. Felt we should just tell y’all so you stop asking, ‘How’s Michael/How’s Sarah?”’

Before their split, Sheen had spoken about moving from Lost Angeles to Port Talbot in south Wales to combat the wave of “demagogic, fascistic” politics he believes has engulfed the West in the past decade.

“In the same way as the Nazis had to be stopped in Germany in the Thirties, this thing that is on the rise has to be stopped,” he said.

Sheen was previously in a relationship with actress Kate Beckinsale and the ex-couple have a daughter, Lily.