Who is Joel Kinnaman's ex-wife Cleo Wattenström? Actor's wedding to tattoo artist cost $435
The personal life of actor Joel Kinnaman, famous for roles in movies like 'Suicide Squad' and 'Robocop', was thrust into the limelight on Friday, August 6, after Swedish model Gabriella Magnusson posted screenshots of chats with him on Instagram, accusing him of rape. While Kinnaman is currently engaged to Victoria's Secret model Kelly Gale, he was once married to a Belgian tattoo artist.
In 2019, Us Weekly reported that the then-39-year-old actor and 26-year-old Cleo Wattenström had amicably separated the previous year. The pair had tied the knot in a private ceremony, which Kinnaman only made public on The Talk in 2016, a year after the wedding had taken place. However, even after splitting up, the duo remained friends. The two even shared photos of hanging out with mutual friends at a UFC fight on Instagram after they were no longer spouses. Wattenström also wished her former husband happy birthday on the social media platform in November of that year. “JOEL!!!!!!!!HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!❤️,” she wrote alongside a series of photos of the pair.
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Who is Cleo Wattenström?
Cleo Wattenström, who still maintains 'Kinnaman' as her surname on her Instagram page, is a body artist whose business is based out of Venice, California. Wattenström was born on June 20, 1992, in Belgium.
While living in Stockholm, Sweden, she dropped out of school at the age of 14 to pursue her dream of becoming a tattoo artist. Wattenström began discovering her own tattoo style after an apprenticeship with a local artist and presently uses exclusively black and white ink to pay homage to her love of black and white movies. In her own words, her favorite style of tattooing is “something with a realistic element in it”. The style that she has come to be known for is “realistic ladies, pictures of girls. Portrait-like but not necessarily of someone particular.”
She currently owns her private studio, Shanti Tattoo, located in Venice. She also works out of a southern-based studio. In the past, she has worked as a model, posing for a number of glamour magazines in a variety of genres. Wattenström has also appeared on the front covers of Inked Magazine and Tattoo Life.
When did Joel Kinnaman and Cleo Wattenström get married?
Kinnaman and Wattenström started dating each other in 2014. In April 2016, during an appearance on 'The Talk,' the Swedish-American actor revealed that he and Wattenström had secretly gotten married. When then-host Aisha Tyler asked him how his “girlfriend” felt about him getting matching tattoos with the cast of 'Suicide Squad,' the actor corrected her saying, "My wife." He then added, “She was laughing at it. A lot of tattoo artists are not so precious about their tattoos... [Tattoo artists are] all friends, they get drunk and do tattoos on each other. They’re actually the ones that are the least precious about it. She was like, ‘His line work needs some work!'”
In August of the same year, he appeared on 'The Late Late Show With James Corden' and revealed that his nuptials had actually taken place "like a year and a half ago." Dishing details about the ceremony, he said that he and Wattenström got married at a place "called Same Day Marriage" in Los Angeles, where "this little Russian lady sitting inside there" charged them $435 to wed them.
Then a "Dracula-looking creature" with "two upside-down Vs painted over her eyes" instead of brows asked them to enter a chapel that resembled "a torture contraption." The officiant who married them asked, "Marriage, rest of your life, you say yes?" and after they both affirmed their stance, she said festively, "Marriage!"
