Jeff Goldblum’s late brother was ‘sent to therapist to fix homosexuality’

Father was 'conspicuously cruel' to gay son, actor says

Up with the lark: the veteran actor sets his alarm for 5am

(AFP/Getty)

Jeff Goldblum has opened up about his father's “cruel” treatment of his late brother, who was sent to therapy “in order to fix” his homosexuality.

The actor said his father Harold had a “traditional masculine sense of himself” and kept his son Lee's sexuality secret from the rest of the family after learning he was gay.

“He didn’t tell the rest of us,” the Jurassic Park star told The Times Magazine. “Sent him to a therapist in order to ‘fix him’. It was all secret. That’s not so nourishing.”

The 67-year-old added: “My dad was, without knowing why, conspicuously cruel to [Lee] at times.”

The actor explained how his older brother experienced many “troubles of one kind or another”, including "physical ailments, [being] overweight, pharmaceuticals abuse and self-medication issues".

Lee attended medical school but quit to join the army and later become a taxi driver, Goldblum said, before returning home to lived with his parents "for the last couple of decades of his life".

Elsewhere in the interview, the actor recalled meeting his wife, Emilie Livingstone, and introducing himself as “Jeff Goldblum” rather than just “Jeff”.

Livingstone, however, did not know who he was and has "still has not seen most of my movies", Goldblum revealed.

Asked if he was trying to indicate that he was famous to Livingstone, the actor replied: “Without falling into, ‘Hey, do you know who I am,’ or doing anything like that, I was trying to do an elegant version, my own variation, probably not successful, of, ‘If you happen to know, by the way, I’m Jeff Goldblum.’ ”