Sir Derek Jacobi: My mother said my sexuality was a phase

Veteran actor Sir Derek Jacobi has spoken about coming out to his parents.

In an interview with the Daily Mail , Sir Derek said he come out to his mother when he was at university: "She said, 'All young men, go through this phase, don’t worry.'
"I remember saying, 'Don’t tell Dad.'
" think she did, but I don’t know.
"But they were wonderful, my parents, not much was said but they kind of knew, they got it."

"I wasn’t open. I just lived my life and people responded to me.

"If they knew, or thought, I was gay, that was fine. If they didn’t, that was fine.

"I’ve never been on a Gay Pride march. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel as strongly about it, I just don’t talk about it."

He also spoke about his partner Richard Clifford who he has been with for nearly 40 years, and in a civil partnership with since 2006. " I don’t know. It is a long time, isn’t it? There’s a certain amount of work, but there’s luck too."

In 2012, Sir Derek described the fight for equal marriage as a " squabble over nothing " and said of his relationship: "We’ve been in a civil partnership for five years. It doesn’t matter what you call it.

"We don’t think of it as marriage, it’s a partnership."