Ted Lasso star doesn't approve of Roy and Keeley's relationship status

Instead, she chose to focus on building her own PR firm, reassuring Roy that everything would be fine between them, but their future seemed uncertain.

Now Ted Lasso season 3 has arrived, in the very first episode, our worst fears have been confirmed – the couple have indeed broken up and it was Roy who did the dumping!

Roy is now assistant coach of AFC Richmond alongside Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) and Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis), ever since Nate Shelley (Nick Mohammed) went over to the dark side to coach West Ham United. Meanwhile, Keeley has achieved her dream of being her own boss.

When Roy and Keeley break the news to Roy’s niece Phoebe (Elodie Blomfield), she asks why. Roy says: "We're too busy," to which Phoebe responds: "But you were both busy before."

Roy adds: "We’re more busy now. Keeley’s got her own company now, so that takes up a lot of her time and focus and we had a coach quit, so it’s now my responsibility for tactics and strategies and s**t..."

We caught up exclusively with Brett Goldstein to see what he thinks about the end of everyone’s favourite couple and if he could tease what’s to come. "They’re also my favourite couple," he says. "I can’t say anything, I’m devastated. I can’t really say anything other than it’s heartbreaking."

Well, does he think the reason they’ve broken up is good enough – that they’re just too busy?

"No," he says firmly. "Do you?"

I agree: "No, I think if you want to make time for people you will."

Brett adds: "Yeah, except for the film La La Land where this loving couple break up immediately when she gets a job, which I never quite understood. It seems to be understood between both of them, like, 'Yeah, well obviously we can’t be together because you’ve got a job in Paris.' The end."

Hopefully this doesn’t spell the end for Roy and Keeley, but we’ll have to wait and see. In the season 3 trailer, they are shown holding hands, so perhaps there’s hope for them yet.

Brett first joined Ted Lasso as a writer, but soon realised he was made to play Roy in the cast – a revelation that came in episode 5 of season 1.

"I always think it was the moment in the car park with Keeley, where Roy accidentally scares her and he immediately apologises and says he’s an idiot.

"I was like, 'Yeah, I get this. I have to do this. I’m gonna kill everyone if I don’t do this.' And that’s how I got the part – I was just threatening."

He says his life has "changed completely" after joining the series. "From having worked for many, many years at a level where not many people saw any of it, to doing Ted Lasso, which people did watch, everything changed.

"I’m very, very lucky. Suddenly people were interested in all these things that I’d been working on."

Read more:

• Ted Lasso season 3 review: Wins big again with assured (final?) outing
• Ted Lasso fans think it's right to end show with season 3
• Ted Lasso season 3 trailer teases Ted and Nate showdown

Just a few of these include co-creating the Netflix anthology series Soulmates, as well as Apple TV+'s Shrinking, hosting the movie podcast Films to be Buried With, and performing stand-up.

Still, the character of Roy Kent has endured and people find it difficult to establish where Roy ends and Brett begins. He even appeared as a version of Roy on several episodes of Sesame Street ("Sesame Street was the peak. I don’t really care what happens for the rest of my life now, because I did that.").

Is it something he’s considered incorporating into his comedy routine? "Weirdly, I have thought about it," he says. "It’s weird when people come to see me do stand-up and I assume they know I’m not Roy Kent and I don’t talk like him and I’m quite different.

"The reality is it’d be worth experimenting, except that, knowing Roy, I don’t think he’s a natural stand-up. His stand-up would be pretty bad. He’d swear the f**k out of it.

"It would be observations about locker rooms, it’d be very niche, and if the audience didn’t laugh, he’d turn on them very, very quickly and he’d probably storm off after four minutes... I mean, that doesn’t sound bad. I can see how that’s an entertaining thing to see!"

Although season 3 of Ted Lasso is meant to be its last, Brett is only just getting started. Much like the Roy Kent chant, "He’s here, he's there, he's every-f**king-where!"

Ted Lasso seasons 1-2 are streaming now on Apple TV+ and season 3, episode 1 arrives today, Wednesday 15th March, with new episodes weekly — you can sign up to Apple TV+ here.

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