Stephen Fry is back on telly with Jeopardy! today (March 17), and his most loyal viewer is surely his devoted husband Elliott Spencer.
The couple tied the knot in 2015, three years after meeting, with comic Elliott declaring that he “doesn’t care” what people think about their 30-year age gap…
Elliott defiant over age-gap relationship
Stephen, 67, is happily married to comedian Elliott Spencer – who, at 37, is 30 years Stephen’s junior. The pair reportedly met in 2012 at a house party after being introduced by pals. Things turned romantic in 2014, it’s claimed.
The couple then tied the knot in 2015. Speaking to The Independent about their relationship, Elliott said: “I don’t care what people think. Stephen is the love of my life, the light of my life.”
He added: “We laugh all the time. Humour is the binding thing in our life. I think that’s what brought us together.”
Stephen Fry has also spoken about husband Elliott on The Jonathan Ross Show. He shared: “We met at a friend’s house and I knew pretty much straight away that this was someone I wanted to spend, what I considered, the rest of my life with.”
Stephen Fry on proposal to husband Elliott
The national treasure previously revealed he was the one to propose to Elliott. He said he slipped the ring onto the prongs of a fork while Elliott was away from the table during a romantic date night.
Reflecting on the occasion, he revealed: “He came back and he started chatting and he started playing with the fork and I thought, for God’s sake look at the fork – you don’t really ever look at forks do you. I thought, he’s going to pick it up and the ring is going to fly off into that lady’s soup.”
Thankfully, Elliott spotted the ring just in time and it turned out to be a “very teary and splendid moment”.
After tying the knot, Stephen announced: “Gosh. @ElliottGSpencer and I go into a room as two people, sign a book and leave as one. Amazing.”
On starting a family with husband Elliott
Stephen Fry and husband Elliott do not have any children together. But Stephen previously hinted that he would like to have kids with his husband.
He said on Desert Island Discs: “I suddenly think, oh my goodness I’m such an age now, but actually that’s rather good, but we better get on with it if we do.”
The star has also said they have discussed starting a family.
“Elliott and I, we talked about it a bit, but we never talked about it to the extent of: ‘Right, so, we’re going to a clinic tomorrow to talk this through to some expert.’ We never quite got that far. It was always” ‘Yeah, it would be nice, wouldn’t it?'”
Meanwhile in 2022, during an interview with The Mirror, he admitted he regrets not having children and that it’s the “biggest hole” in his life experience.
He said: “I’ve had opportunities, I suppose, to have had children. I could have sorted something out. I have many godchildren now, nieces and nephews, and great-nieces and great-nephews, but I’ll never experience a child growing up. It’s a slight sadness. I mean, that’s probably the biggest hole in my life experience.”
When did Stephen Fry come out?
Stephen Fry has not specified the exact age he came out as a gay man. However, he has said in past interviews that he was aware he was gay while still a young child.
He famously quipped: “I suppose it all began when I came out of the womb. I looked back up at my mother and thought to myself, that’s the last time I’m going up one of those.”
He has previously said he maintained celibacy from the years of 1979 and 1995. He said he chose to be celibate because he wasn’t always comfortable with the 1980s and 1990s gay scenes – and was waiting it out until he found true love.
His rise to fame
Back with Jeopardy! today, Stephen is no stranger to appearing on screens. In fact, he’s been in the business for almost five decades.
From a role in a Golden Globe Award-winning film to even a cameo in the iconic tween flick St. Trinian’s, Stephen has kept himself busy over the years!
Hailing from London, Stephen was born in Hampstead on August 24, 1957 .
He first shot to fame in the 1980s as one-half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie alongside Hugh Laurie. He also had roles in Alfresco with Emma Thompson, as well as Blackadder with Rowan Atkinson between 1986 and 1989.
Since then, he’s turned his hands to an array of different career moves – from TV, movie and theatre roles to becoming a best-selling author.
Why he quit QI
Stephen hosted the British quiz show QI for 13 years – from 2003 to 2016. He confirmed he was leaving the show in 2016 after appearing in more than 180 episodes and called it “one of the best jobs on television”.
However, QI star panelist, actor Alan Davies, revealed in 2016 that the real reason for Stephen quitting was due to budget cuts at the BBC.
He said: “For budget reasons, they ended up making him do three shows in 24 hours. Sometimes he’d go upstairs and have a vodka and tonic and a lie down then come back and say: ‘I don’t want to do this.’ I sympathise, because I felt exactly the same way. It’s not fair.”
When did Stephen Fry go missing?
Stephen has been open about his battle with mental health over the years. He has also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, something he previously said “explained the massive highs and miserable lows I’ve lived with all my life”.
In 1995, he had a nervous breakdown while appearing in a West End play, Cell Mates. He ended up walking out of the show and caused an early closure.
Stephen went missing for several days. He later revealed that he would have killed himself if he didn’t “have the option of disappearing,” as MailOnline reports. He then left the UK by Ferry, and resurfaced in Belgium.
What’s Stephen Fry doing now?
It’s fair to say Stephen has kept himself busy over the past couple of years! And this year, he revisits the hosting gig for rebooted quiz show Jeopardy!.
Jeopardy! has been around for decades. The show first launched on NBC in 1964 and has been running pretty much consistently ever since on US TV.
The show is different from usual quiz shows, as it sees a contestant given clues to a question in the form of an answer. They must identify the person, place, thing, or idea that the clue describes, by phrasing it in the form of a question.
Speaking about the show, Stephen said: “In the United States, Jeopardy! is a phenomenon like no other.” He added: “Whenever I’m in America, I do my damnedest to catch it every weekday. The idea of hosting it here in the UK makes me dizzy with delight. Such a dedicated quizzing nation as ours will, I hope, welcome this uniquely beguiling and endlessly rewarding game.”
Read more: Jeopardy! host Stephen Fry ‘not the right guy’ to front reboot as viewers switch off
Jeopardy! airs weekdays from 3pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
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