Inbetweeners star Joe Thomas is engaged to Tara actor after meeting on set of iconic show

The Inbetweeners is coming back after over a decade as Netflix announced yesterday, 8 September, that a third movie is in production and the original quartet of stars are set to return.

In the years since they have had varying levels of success, but one of the things that Joe Thomas has done in the years since will shock fans: being engaged since 2017 to his co-star from the TV show Hannah Tointon who played Tara.

The Netflix movie has not confirmed that anyone involved other than Joe Thomas, James Buckley, Blake Harrison, or Simon Bird are coming back, but it would be a major surprise for Tara to come back considering her and Thomas’ Simon break up in series three after their disastrous trip to visit her at uni.

In real life though the pair hit it off on set and now have a daughter named Kayla.

Joe Thomas, who played Simon exclusively told LADbible that he reckons fans are often surprised by who he actually ended up with in real life.

“I don’t know whether they thought I’d end up with Carly,” he said.

But instead, the 40-year-old has been with Hannah Tointon for around 15 years after meeting on the show.

She played Tara Brown, Simon’s girlfriend in the show’s third and final season. You know the one – she’s sick all over him just as she’s about to kiss him.

And in another episode he undertakes a disastrous attempt to lose his virginity to her, leading to the end of their relationship as he proceeded to yell at his own crotch.

They've been together since at least 2010. (Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)

Thomas added: “I think Tara is a nicer character than Carly. So, if they’ve [the fans] watched the show properly, they'd realise that. I suppose it just sort of makes sense in a way. I think they kind of like it.”

He continued that he reckons the two characters ‘had a little more distance left to run’, something they’ve ended up enabling themselves.

“It was a bit of a shame that it fell apart,” he said. “And it's just nice to be able to make it, you know, make it true in real life.”

The pair have now been engaged since 2017 and welcomed their first child together back in 2022.

Simon and Tara could still end up together as Simon ended the second movie single after being dumped by Lucy (Channel 4)

Promoting his new stag and hen do helpline with Wise, Thomas added to LADbible he ‘obviously would’ invite the rest of The Inbetweeners lads to his own stag do.

“I would be happy to have them there - they are my genuine friends. They are like friends from school, that’s really how I see them. Although we were a bit older than, the characters we played, it was a bit like going to school,” he explained.

Thomas spoke to LADbible before taking on a stag do helpline. (Wise)

“We saw each other every day and it was kind of a very, very formative experience for all of us. It is a little bit like the relationship between the characters as we went through these formative years together - getting things wrong, sort of comforting each other by being as confused as everyone else.

“I really would have them there. They would go, definitely.”

Joe Thomas has teamed up with international money app Wise, to uncover the changing face of hen and stag do's in the UK and abroad. Search wise.com/staghenhelpline for more tips on how to elevate your stag or hen event without breaking the bank.