The first member of the extended Royal Family has come out as gay and in a relationship.
The Queen’s cousin, Lord Ivar Mountbatten, 53, (pictured on the right) has revealed that he is gay and in a relationship with his boyfriend James Coyle (not in picture), who is an air steward.
He is the first member of the extended Royal Family to have come out as openly gay. He is the great-great-great- grandson of Queen Victoria.
Speaking to the Mail On Sunday he said,
“Now everyone in our family knows and could not be more supportive. Neither of us wanted to have relationships which were transitory; the stereotypical view of gay relationships is that they are too fleeting, too frequent”.
Lord Mountbatten, who had been previously married to a woman, although they separated in 2010, hasn’t ruled out marrying his partner, James, saying,
“If you’d raised that six months or even two weeks ago, I’d have said ‘No way’. But now it’s out there [he means the fact he’s gay], anything is possible”
Speaking about how his three daughters felt about him and his partner, Lord Mountbatten said,
“In an ideal world, I know the girls would like their mother and father still to be together, but they love their 21st Century family that we have built too. Their father has a boyfriend. It’s that complicated and that simple, but finding James means I will not have to lie to anyone or grow old on my own.”
