In 2024, the legendary star, who once attended York’s Mount School, will be turning 90. During a December 2024 interview, the actress Judi opened up about her next birthday stating, “It’s just that you get a bit nervous when everybody says 90. I don’t want to think of 90 much, I’m going to think about [turning] 29.”

The star continued, “I think you’re lucky to be 90,” noting how it isn’t good that two of her great friends, Maggie Smith and Barbara Leigh-Hunt, passed away in the last four weeks or so. She is, however, happy that she can still get around and feels she has a lot to be grateful for.

But, her biggest regret is that she and Michael Williams, her late husband of 30 years, never got to have the large family they’d planned. The actor sadly died in 2001 from lung cancer. She revealed, “Michael and I said, ‘We’re going to have six children.’ We had one, beautiful Finty, and we didn’t have the other five.”

Judi explained that it didn’t happen because she worked a lot. Now the woman who describes herself as “hopeless at my own company,” lives in a farmhouse in Surrey. She and the man she calls her “chap,” David Mills, have been together since 2010.

The actress was also asked to reveal the happiest moment of her career and life and her response was, “That’s impossible. Too many happy things. God, how lucky to be able to say that.”

Judi’s Life with Her First and Only Husband

The actress and her late husband were married from 1971 to 2001 and were blessed with a daughter, Finty Williams. Judi is also a doting grandmother, as Finty has blessed her with a grandson, Sam Williams.

“Michael used to laugh and, and when he laughed, he used to cry,” she recalled. Still, Judi said it could be their mutual interest in things that kept them going. “It’s impossible to tell,” she added.

The actress got emotional talking about her husband on BBC Two’s Louis Theroux interview. She was in New York when she was informed that Michael Williams was unwell. Judi’s agent flew out, and she returned on Concorde the following day, but the take-off was aborted.

They disembarked and returned, assuring each other that everything would be alright. Boarding another plane, they encountered a similar issue, leading to a prolonged journey back home.

“But we were back, and got back here, and so we were all in the house together, and that was very, very good indeed,” she recalled. Since losing her husband, the iconic star has found comfort in her daughter’s child and the pair have become quite close.

Judi’s Bond with Sam

Judi and her only grandson have built quite a bond. The grandmother-grandson duo have lots of fun together. In 2021, Sam posted a cute picture of him and his grandmother all smiles at an event.

“He looks just like his grandfather,” a fan pointed out. “Looks like Michael,” noted another person, who added that Michael and Judi should have had more kids.

Another individual also gushed, “Love the relationship Dame Judi has with her grandson; it’s just wonderful.” Judi and Sam’s close relationship amazed many other fans on TikTok.

He said his grandmother was “quite resistant at first, had no idea about TikTok or anything.”

The “Skyfall” star narrated that Sam was “Strict! Very strict. I’d say, ‘We’ll do it now,’ and he’d say, ‘No, you can’t do it now you’re not good enough. Do it again, do it again, do it again!'”

She would also wonder about what she would do for the day, so thankfully, with a tough creative director like Sam, she had activities to fill her day.

As the 89-year-old continues working as an actress and a TikTok sensation, she struggles with sight loss. The movie star was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration, which impacts over 600,000 people in the UK.

“You find a way of just getting about and getting over the things that you find very difficult,” said Judi about coping with her illness. Some ways the actress copes are by learning via repetition when her friends repeat lines to her over and over.

The star also relies on people to tell her when she is doing something wrong, such as speaking at a wall instead of her fellow actors.

Since her mother also had sight problems, her daughter has her eyes checked regularly. “It is intensely irritating,” admitted Judi. The actress now has to get very close to people before she knows who they are.

Still, she can walk past someone she knows very well and not recognize them.

Even with these health challenges, Judi chooses to focus on the positive. She finds tidbits of goodness in the loss of her eyesight, but mostly, she enjoys the quality time she spends with her grandson, who brings so much joy into her life.