Stephen Fry has opened up about his relationship with his husband, Elliott Spencer.
The 67-year-old actor, screenwriter and author, married Spencer in January 2015 after meeting at a house party in 2012. Spencer, a comedian, is 30 years Fry’s junior and was born in 1987.
The couple both report having an immediate connection and after three years together, they married ten days after announcing they were engaged. They celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary this year.
However, the pair have been notoriously private about their relationship, despite their 30-year age gap drawing significant attention. They have not been pictured together in public since 2019.
Fry discussed their life behind the scenes in a new interview with Rylan Clark on his podcast Rylan: How to Be in Love.
“I can tell you how to have a successful relationship with Elliot, but that’s probably not very helpful,” he said, shedding light on the secrets behind his happy marriage.
“But I guess it’s all the normal human virtues – some of which are forgotten virtues – but one of the most important human virtues, I think, isn’t even really considered a virtue, but it is one that changes the world.
“And it’s not kindness, which obviously is important, but it’s a subset of kindness, perhaps – and it’s cheerfulness.”
Fry explained: “When you’re in the presence of a cheerful person, it makes everything better. They’re like their own sunshine. So that’s one of the things. If one is down, to help the other come up and understand each other’s differences as emotional human beings.
“For example, I had to understand, and he had to understand, that I am extremely energetic and bouncy and chatty in the mornings at breakfast and he is not. So I had to find ways of just calming myself and he had to come up a little bit and not be quite so kind of, ‘Will you shut up Stephen!’”
In fact, the presenter said that their age gap had helped to keep their relationship interesting as Spencer introduced him to things he wouldn’t ordinarily encounter or enjoy.
“He teaches me things I just didn’t know,” he said. “He introduced me to Kendrick Lamar, which was a great thing to do because Kendrick Lamar I’ve decided is a great poetical spirit, a really remarkable figure.
“But that plus, now you’re really going to laugh here because I thought, is he insane? He has a great affection for, and I guess you could call it ironic, but it’s real – for WWE…”
Fry said that he had become a fan of professional wrestling and had purchased tickets for Wrestlemania in Las Vegas.
