Harry Aikines-Aryeetey has spent two decades performing in front of crowds, first as a Team GB sprinter and now as Nitro on BBC’s Gladiators. His wife, Lauren Cooper, has appeared publicly exactly once.
That one occasion was a November 2025 exclusive shoot for Hello! Magazine, at Nonsuch Mansion in Surrey, alongside Harry and their five-year-old daughter Aubreรฉ-Isla. Lauren has given no interviews, keeps her Instagram private and has made a clear, consistent choice to stay out of the public life her husband lives in.
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Who Is Harry Aikines-Aryeetey’s Wife?
Harry Aikines-Aryeetey’s wife is Lauren Cooper, now Lauren Aikines-Aryeetey following their marriage in October 2019. She is the mother of their daughter, Aubreรฉ-Isla, born in September 2020. Lauren keeps her personal and professional life entirely private, and no verified details about her career, education or background have been published by any credible UK media outlet.
Lauren Cooper: Quick Facts
| Full name | Lauren Aikines-Aryeetey (nรฉe Cooper) |
| Married | October 2019 |
| Daughter | Aubreรฉ-Isla, born September 2020 |
| Private | |
| Only media appearance | Hello! Magazine, November 2025 |
| Career / background | Never publicly disclosed |
When Did Harry Aikines-Aryeetey Get Married?
Harry and Lauren married in October 2019. The venue, exact date and guest list have never been made public.
One detail Harry has chosen to share is who stood beside him at the altar. In a January 2026 interview with The Big Issue, he revealed his best men were the friends he made training on the athletics track as a teenager.
“My best friends to this day, my best men at my wedding, the guys I see weekly, are the guys I met on the track,” he said. “I am so thankful for the sport of athletics.”
How and when Harry and Lauren first met has never been confirmed by either of them.
Does Harry Aikines-Aryeetey Have Children?
Yes. Harry and Lauren’s daughter, Aubreรฉ-Isla, was born in September 2020. She turned five years old in September 2025, just days before Harry took to the Strictly Come Dancing 2025 floor for his first live show.
On her fifth birthday, Harry posted on Instagram:
“Can’t believe my little shadow is already 5. She’s grown, got more sass than me, and somehow still manages to be my partner in crime. Being a girl dad… undefeated feeling. Girl dads know, you don’t raise daughters, they raise you. #Big5 #Level5Unlocked”
According to Harry’s official BBC Strictly biography, Aubreรฉ-Isla is already faster than her father by over five metres. She is reportedly a devoted Strictly fan. At the November 2025 Hello! shoot, she kept the team entertained by running through the signature poses of Harry’s Gladiators co-stars.
“She has such a big personality, I think she’s going to be a performer,” Harry said.
What Does Lauren Cooper Do?
This is what most people searching for information about Lauren want to know, and the straightforward answer is that nobody outside the family knows.
Lauren has never spoken to the press. She has no public social media presence. No credible UK publication has reported verified details about her professional life or background. Harry speaks warmly about Lauren in interviews but has never disclosed specifics about her career or personal history.
The only confirmed public appearance Lauren has made is the November 2025 Hello! Magazine family shoot. No interview was published alongside it.
The Year That Brought It All Into Focus
In 2024, a year before his Strictly debut, Harry ruptured his patellar tendon. For a professional athlete and the BBC’s most high-profile Gladiator, the injury raised questions that went well beyond fitness.
“My kneecap was halfway up my leg,” he told Hello! Magazine in November 2025. “I was asking myself, was I going to be able to walk properly? Run again? Be myself again? People tell you you’ll be fine, but I thought: maybe I’m not going to be good again. Maybe I’m not even going to be Nitro again. When you’re injured, you worry about being replaced, that you’re not enough. Ultimately, as an athlete, you’ve got an expiry date.”
He recovered. When Harry stepped onto the Strictly 2025 floor in September of that year for his first live performance, a cha cha to Salt-N-Pepa’s Push It with professional partner Karen Hauer, he broke down in tears immediately after.
“I’ve dreamt of that moment,” he said. “This time last year I just wasn’t able to do anything like that, and I never thought I’d be myself again. Even though I did Christmas I wasn’t 100% there and now I’m 100%, so I’m thankful.”
Harry was eliminated in Week 7 of Strictly 2025, the sixth celebrity to leave the competition.
Harry on Fatherhood, Marriage and Where His Values Come From
When Harry talks about family, the version of himself that comes through is far removed from the one standing in Gladiators lycra in front of a Saturday night audience.
In the Hello! Magazine exclusive in November 2025, sitting alongside Lauren and Aubreรฉ-Isla at Nonsuch Mansion, he called himself a helicopter parent without any hesitation.
“If anything I’m too much of a hands-on dad,” he said. “I do her hair, take her clothes shopping… and she now cooks with me. If you ask her what ingredients go into a pancake, she will tell you everything.”
“She’s never felt pain. That’s probably my toxic trait, where I don’t want her to feel any hurt, whereas she’s going to need to feel those bumps and bruises to learn. I’m trying to allow that as best as I can. I can stand in an arena with 80,000 people and focus on the task ahead… but the moment she’s in a room, I’m distracted.”
In his January 2026 Big Issue interview, he was equally open:
“I always wanted a boy, but having been surrounded by females my whole life, I now know that I was born to be a girl dad. Seeing me dancing, playing, dressing up, cooking with my daughter would surprise my younger self. It changes you for the better. I think my child is the most amazing thing on this planet.”
His view of what a marriage should actually look like was shaped long before he met Lauren. Harry was born in Carshalton, Surrey to Ghanaian immigrant parents who worked two jobs each simultaneously to provide for the family. He is one of four siblings. His two older sisters were born in Ghana before the family relocated to Britain.
“They worked two jobs each. They’d be passing ships, and it made me realise a relationship is a partnership,” he told Hello!. “Ultimately, it’s how well you work together as a team.”
That line, offered almost in passing during an interview about Strictly, is probably the clearest thing Harry has said publicly about his marriage and what he expects from it.
Lauren Cooper married an Olympic sprinter who has since become one of BBC television’s most recognisable faces. She has watched him race at two Olympic Games, recover from a back fracture as a teenager, rupture his patellar tendon as an adult and rebuild himself twice over. Through all of it, she has maintained a level of privacy that is genuinely unusual for a partner of someone at Harry’s level of public exposure.
Six years into their marriage, with a daughter who reportedly already outruns her father, the arrangement appears to suit them both. Harry fills every room he walks into. Lauren, by all accounts, prefers it that way.
