Sorry, another Philip Schofield one...

[UnaCorda]

I really couldn't care less about Philip Schofield's sexuality (or anyone else's) and good for him for finally being true to himself. But what makes me quite cross is all this talk of honesty and bravery, and the self-indulgent, tortured confessional in front of the nation when really it's of no importance to anyone who doesn't know him personally.

In the clip of his chat with Holly he asks repeatedly, "When is the right time?" In my opinion, the right time is before you get married to someone who believes you are straight. It's not brave, or honest, to make someone unwittingly provide you with the benefits of a heterosexual relationship, including children, so you can be viewed by the public as a "respectable family man". It's actually rather selfish.

I had a brief relationship with someone who I later discovered was gay. He didn't even have the balls to tell me directly, and it seriously screwed me up for a long time. I can't imagine what it must be like to find out your husband of 27 years is homosexual.

I'm not gay, so perhaps I am being unreasonable as I don't know what it is like to come out to friends and family (although I imagine it is easier now than it was thirty years ago) and I don't know whether PS really believed that he was in love with his wife when they got married. But I do think that leaving a duplicitous life which affects other people is not a kind or honourable thing to do and I feel very sorry for his wife and daughters who I think really have been brave.

Absolutely agree OP. My first thought was "but what about his poor wife?"

We are all speculating. The sad truth is that coming out is still a big deal.

Brave is not someone announcing they're gay.

I couldn't give a toss if he's gay straight or bi, but I thought the This Morning interview was fake and cringy AF

Oh Hi Phil 😘

I think his wife has probably known for a very long time. Lots of people choose to stay in marriages because of the companionship and love between the couple even if it isn’t a sexual type love - I know of several long term marriages personally where the couple is no longer involved sexually and hasn’t been for a very long time but both choose to stay married because they love each other in a deeper sense (sexuality, disability, past sexual abuse making a sexual life impossible for that person and the other person accepting that, etc etc etc). However, yes she may have just found out.

If you live in a very liberal open minded area like certain parts of London then yes coming out is not a big deal. However as someone who lived in London for 26 years and then moved to Norfolk I am constantly shocked by the attitudes of people around me with regards to race and sexuality. Being anything other than heterosexual is still a huge deal in many, many parts of the UK yet alone the rest of the world - sadly.

I don't understand being annoyed on her behalf.

It's not difficult to empathise after having the experience I described.

His wife and children are the brave ones.

He might not have been able to come out 27 years ago, but he didn’t need to steal the last 27 years of his wife's life by marrying her.

IMO it should be a deception offence marrying someone when you know you are gay. I.hopw she can get the marriage anulled.

You ca not make this judgement without knowing the full story.

I am gay and had to make the awful decision to rip my family apart by leaving my husband. I had no idea that I was gay when I married him. I knew I was attracted to women but assumed that I was bisexual (which I am not - I would still be with him if I was). It is the most painful, horrible thing that I have ever had to endure and the worst part is the guilt that I have to carry at all times that I ruined our family unit and broke his heart because I didn’t know what I was when I married him. I have been very unwell with depression and anxiety due to this and have had a full breakdown as a result. And no, I am not making it all about me - I am just stating how deeply this affects the spouse who is gay as well as the spouse who married them. You cannot possibly know the pain that something who makes this realisation in such cute instances has to carry around with them.

His wife must be devastated, but it does sound as if she has been aware for some time. I very much hope that she finds love and happiness with somebody else one day. But he probably did not know that he was gay when he married her.

Sorry if I sound over sensitive about this, but I am really struggling with the guilt for the hurt I have caused and the repercussions. It’s a hair shirt that I wear constantly and I’m sure that he feels similarly.

Don't feel sorry for him or his wife tbh. She must have known and chosen to accept it for all the advantages of being martied to him offered.

Feel a bit sorry for his kids. But again not to sorry. There are much worse things than being the child of a very famous gay celebrity. It's all a bit cringey. Like finding out your headmaster is gay. Or your boss likes cross dressing. Or a ndn a swinger. Just slightly more detail than you needed about someone you vaguely know.

Yanbu at ALL OP. Agree wholeheartedly. And what a coincidence it coincides with when he is getting bad press re. colleagues lodging grievances against him for his shitty behaviour.

Brave my fucking arse.

I’m not really a fan of PS, but I think this thread is unfair.

None of us know how his wife feels, and we shouldn’t speak for her.

Yep all of this. Also Andy Peters must be mad as hell at all this “he couldn’t come out earlier because society” bullshit. Zero sympathy for this ‘brave’ man.

Even if his wife has known from the beginning (which I doubt), he has actively deceived their children for at least a period of time (you’re not going to trust a young child to keep such a big secret) and at some stage will have had to tell them that their parents marriage was a sham. That has surely got to mess you up, much in the same way a divorce would.

My husband’s parents divorced when he was 15, he went from thinking everything was perfect to suddenly being told his dad had met someone else and wasn’t coming home for Christmas. He said it messed him up for years afterwards and even now (30 years later) I see in him an obsessive need to make everything perfect at Christmas time, which I honestly think is a knock on effect of his dad leaving at that time of year.

But actually maybe my first impressions are unreasonable. @Youca you’ve obviously lived through this and have far more insight than me. I think it’s the bravery aspect that’s bugging me.

You’re being a little unfair, PS is in his 50s. I am in my 40s and I remember gay boys at school being bullied and loads of homophobic chat. Being out and proud wasn’t a thing in my small town and I think gay people hid their true feelings and conformed by getting married. OP might be younger and not remember full on hostility to gays (and pretty much any minority group).

The whole world could see he was gay. It was hardly a great surprise. I doubt it was to his wife either!

So much speculation and nastiness on MN about this.

I think it was pretty brave to announce it on live TV. Sadly, even though we think we live in enlightened times, it is still a big deal to come out. I felt very sorry for him when I watched TM - he looked really thin, drained and emotional.

The posters spewing bile don't know what has gone on in his marriage. His family are supporting him, that speaks volumes.

I'm really not sure if it's possible to genuinely not know you are gay - or, to put it another way, to genuinely think you are straight.

The woman I knew who married a man and had a child with him thought she was straight. She loved her husband. The relationship and marriage was in good faith. And yet most of her life she’d struggled with periods of deep unhappiness and depression and didn't understand why. After severe PND, she had counselling and began to focus on herself. Slowly she began to realise who she really was. She says that on some level she must have always known, but never consciously, hence the depression and unhappiness. It took a long time - until her 30s - for her to fully realise it. Telling her husband was awful. The assumptions from those outside looking in that she must have always known, and had deliberately deceived him, were horrendous.

As I said, it’s not always straightforward.

PS hasn’t specifically said. His wife has said nothing. It would be easy to look in and judge, but none of us knows how this has played out over the last 30 years, and given what I know of someone who’s been in similar shoes, sometimes it’s not as simple as it seems.

*None of us know how his wife feels, and we shouldn’t speak for her.&

That is true, and I don't think I have spoken for her.

But even if this was an arrangement the two of them cooked up between them 27 years ago so they could both benefit from his "wholesome" image and she went in with her eyes wide open, I still don't think coming out now makes him some sort of hero.

Totally agree with you. Plus, I dont understand this nonsense about his career- plenty of tv presenters /stars are gay- dale winton, rylan, graham norton, alan carr, paul O grady, Gok wan, john barrowman, evan davis, clare balding etc Is it really that "brave" in the context of these people who have been honest from the start about who they are?

I feel so, so bad for his wife too because if she dares to express distress she'll be labelled "homophobic" when she has every bloody right to be upset her husband is gay

I also think he was about to be outed. The press has been digging at him for a while so the maybe the rumours were catching up with him.

Agree, you don’t just wake up at 58 and decide your gay!! He has know for years and to get married and not own you sexuality I’d just dishonest.

I still only think he came out on Friday because it was all going to come out in the Sunday rags this weekend, the papers had been on his case since before Christmas about not getting on with his colleagues.

Brave is being a soldier in a war zone, a fireman rescuing someone from a burning building, not coming out.