Richard Wilson: I didn’t mind being outed by the press
One Foot in the Grave actor Richard Wilson has opened up about being outed by the press.
The actor only publicly acknowledged his sexuality for the first time in 2013 – after being listed in a list of prominent gay people by ‘Time Out’ magazine.
He told the Guardian: “I was officially ‘outed’ by Time Out a couple of years ago. They included me in a list of influential gays.
“I didn’t mind – because I am gay – but I did think I’d better warn my sister, who had probably guessed anyway.
“As a much younger man I was very keen not to come out, like so many others, because of my family.
“In any case I wasn’t leading a particularly gay life, though, of course, a lot of my friends were gay.
“Before that, when I was growing up on the west coast of Scotland, I didn’t really know, let alone understand, about homosexuality – the word, or what it was.
“I didn’t come across anyone gay until my late 20s. My parents never knew.”
Despite only acknowledging his sexuality in 2013, the actor had been a long-standing campaigner for equality, working with LGB rights group Stonewall alongside Sir Ian McKellen.
The actor was referred to as gay when he hosted the 2008 Stonewall awards – but the news was not picked up at the time.
