Russell Tovey recalls ‘bizarre’ experience with homophobe at festival: ‘We ended up having a scrap’

Russell Tovey has spoken about his ‘preposterous’ experience with homophobia, which resulted in him and a friend having a ‘scrap’ with a guy who’d made comments about them at a festival. 

The actor, 39, who is Attitude’s latest cover star, recalled the experience in an accompanying interview.

He explained: ‘The only place I’ve experienced some sort of homophobia was once at a Soho House festival. 

‘Me and my friend Matt Kennard, who is actually straight, were at the bar getting drinks and somebody says, “Come on, gay boys, hurry up, gay boys.” 

‘We ended up having a scrap with the guy. It was just like, “Excuse me? What the f**k is going on? This is f**king Soho House, of all places!” 

‘It was so preposterous and bizarre. It was so odd. Homophobia is so odd. It’s just so odd.’

Russell also opened up about the first time he had felt a sense of pride about his identity as a gay man after an older actress he was working with opened up a conversation with him off set. 

He explained: ‘I was doing a TV show and I was desperately in love with this much older actor and had such a crush on him, and I didn’t think anyone knew. I thought I was hiding it very well, but I wasn’t. 

‘This older actress took me for a walk along the beach where it was filming and explained to me that I might be gay. 

‘She said, “If you are, that’s great; if you’re not, that’s fine. But you might be.” It felt like, oh, that’s an option. That is something I can possibly be. That’s what these feelings I’m having are. 

‘It’s confusing because you’re living in a world where you’re being told there’s nowhere you can look to understand, what are my feelings? You feel lost and at that age, to have someone put their hand out and go, “Come here. This is just me giving a bit of advice.” It stayed with me forever and changed everything.’

The full interview with Russell Tovey is available in the May issue of Attitude, out now.

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