Stephen Fry says reading about Oscar Wilde made him fear ‘a cursed life’ as a gay man in Britain

Broadcaster and writer was influenced by learning about the homophobia the 19th-century Irish poet faced

Stephen Fry has opened up about the impact of reading about Oscar Wilde as a teenager and its effects on his thoughts on being gay in the UK.

Wilde was an Irish poet and dramatist, best known for his 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and 1895 play The Importance of Being Earnest. Before his death aged 46 in 1900, Wilde was a high-profile societal figure in Victorian London, and was married to a woman while keeping his homosexuality a secret.

However, he was shunned and shamed after allegations of engaging in sodomy, and in 1895 was sentenced to hard labour in jail for “gross indecency”.

After his two-year imprisonment, which had a profound effect on his health, Wilde left the UK for France and spent the rest of his life wandering Europe in exile with a dwindling fortune.

Wilde’s life has been documented in several biographies, with his legal battle in particular detailed in H Montgomery Hyde’s The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1948).

In a new interview with Radio Times, Fry, 65, spoke about how reading this account at a young age highlighted his own homosexuality.

“I started to gasp and pant and feel simultaneously triumphant and terribly, terribly worried,” Fry told the publication.

“I suddenly understood this extraordinary man and that his ‘nature’ – the word he used in his famous letter to his lover ‘Bosie’ – his nature was the same as mine. As soon as I read that, I knew that I was gay.”

As well as being key for Fry realising his own sexuality, the book also made the broadcaster worry about what his life would be like as a gay man in a homophobic society.

Stephen Fry (Getty Images)

Fry explained his fear “that my life was absolutely cursed if I wanted to stay in Britain, in that I would have to live a life of secrecy, shame, exile, disgrace,” he said. “All the horrors.”

Private homosexual acts between men over 21 were only decriminalised in the UK in 1967, with the passing of the Sexual Offences Act. Prior to that, Fry knew of the lives of gay men as being seen as “disgusting, sent to prison, losing their name and their livelihood”.

Fry played Wilde in the 1997 biographical film, Wilde, and received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor for his performance.